Extinction
by TobyWong
Summary: Duncan lost to Kronos. Immortals are public enemies... and the watchers are allowed to hunt them down.
1. Chapter 1

**Chapter I: Consequences**

"I AM THE END OF TIME!"

Duncan MacLeod performed a failed sword stroke at the head of Kronos, who had bellowed those words after clashing sword for the nth time with the Highlander. Then Duncan felt a quickening rising from a headless body, as lightning bolted a human shape somewhere. He glanced by reflex at that person, aghast upon the recognition of both the beheaded and the slim shape that was welcoming the quickening. A slim shape with an ancient face whose eyes were fixed upon him. Eyes that would be his last vision on this side, for Kronos lashed forward and severed off MacLeod's head...

Adam Pierson blinked, returning to reality. In his hand awaited the half-eaten piece of pizza he had been dining before the sudden vision of MacLeod's death startled him yet again. How long he had been dreaming awake he could not know. Ten minutes at least, given the pizza was cold. He stared at his home-made meal estranged. He had learned to make it in Naples, at the dusk of the nineteenth century. Over the last five thousand years, he had tasted many different foods. The pizza, in any of its varieties, stood out as his one of his favourites. However, he did not enjoy it now as he used to.

The lighting flickered for a few moments and faded out. Adam had crouched at the flickering knowing that was not a coincidence. It could not be a coincidence. Not now that immortals were considered public enemies, not to say a plague, that the Watchers had emerged from their position of secrecy and the Government had entrusted them the elimination of immortals.

The image of a darkhaired woman flashed in his head. Cassandra, Methos' slave in the days almost lost to history, the days where many legends hail from, the days of the Four Horsemen. She had found him again after three thousand years, hours after Kronos had done the same. She wanted him dead, and only Duncan MacLeod could keep her at bay.

In an attempt to gain time, Methos had helped Kronos find the other Horsemen: the kind giant Silas, eager for violence but at the same time easily led, and the sadist Caspian, a wild beast that had always been hard to contain. Kronos had plans to spread a disease around the world. In his way, there was a Scottish stumbling block. MacLeod took Caspian's head and escaped Silas. Kronos had kidnapped Cassandra to make the Highlander surrender.

MacLeod faced Kronos, who sent Silas to get rid of the sorceress. Methos rushed behind the giant, deliberating with himself his next course of action. He made up his mind to help the Highlander, but a split second too slowly as Silas bounced his axe over Cassandra's neck. Only for a split second. But it was too late. Silas moved away, leaving Methos in his stillness to be struck by the quickening of the sorceress.

The quickening startled MacLeod. Methos easily read disappointment, dread, anger, and many other emotions in the Highlander's face. Emotions which surfaced on Methos when Kronos took Duncan's head. Silas and Kronos followed their plan and spread the virus. Methos fled, as always...

He heard some noise coming from the main door. He crawled toward the living room, next to the kitchen, and to where the main door led. He grasped his sword and hid behind the sofa. Seconds later, three masked men wielding machetes and submachine guns entered the room. They spread.

One headed to the kitchen, the other stayed at the door. The third one moved toward Methos' direction. The immortal clenched his fist around the grip of his sword. When the man went past him, he rose and stabbed the man. The gasp of the wounded drew the attention of the others. With no other alternative, Methos attacked them. A whistle followed and suddenly Adam felt his shoulder was on fire. A second shot coming from the door hit him in the chest. He fell.

His senses began to fail and the last thing he noticed before his eyes closed was the pale glint of the moonlight, reflected on a sharp blade. Perhaps one day this war would be over. As the pain scorched through his neck, he knew he would not live to see it.

-----

"Good morning, I'm Christopher Wingfield. The news of the day is the elimination of the immortal Methos, known to be one of the heads behind the Water Disease the immortals caused in 1997. According to the spokesman of the Watchers, Methos used the alias of Adam Pierson, and was an insider providing information for the immortals. In other news..."

As he wandered inside a shop to see the many outlets he would never be able to buy, Kenny had overheard the TV anchorman. People were gathering around a TV to hear. There was a calm celebrating mood growing there. Kenny looked down for a second, not sure of what to feel. He had never liked Methos. Twice the late immortal had had the chance to take his head, twice a twist of fate had saved Kenny. But he had been aiding those who dared oppose the Watchers. In a way, a chunk of the small possibilities of success immortals had died with him.

His body shook in panic when he sensed one of his kind around. Merely out of habit. The days when carrying a sword was crucial to stay alive against other immortals were over. Anyone with a large coat, or any other kind of outfit that might allow to conceal a sword, was detained and questioned. If a sharp object were to be found, the suspect would be taken down to the police department. A swift trial totally devoid of fairness would follow, and then the immortal would be history.

He walked out of the shop. As a ten-year-old-looking immortal, he was still able to carry his petty sword inside his scruffy blue sports jacket. Despite knowing about younglings with a very large life span, the cops did not regard them seriously. Had it been otherwise, after 800 years, he would have found it hard to part with his arm. Because the weapon was the only thing he could trust, but mainly because it reminded him of Amanda.

As he strolled through an avenue that seemed to be less and less crowded with every step he took, he remembered his teacher, his love, the woman he knew he would never have. Not now, not ever. She would have never taken him seriously. Or maybe she would at some point. But he would never know. The Watchers... no... that man was responsible. Joe Dawson. He had called her for a meeting at his bar. There he had turned her in. One slice and Amanda was history.

He turned into a deserted darkened street. His shadow ahead of him imitated his movements and he could see his mushroom haircut bounce up and down as he treaded. Slowly, more shadows joined his. Larger, better-built shapes moving at his same pace. Kenny gulped and started running.

But they were faster than he was. He was grasped by the arm and thrown to the floor. Two men, one blond with a small scar on the face below the eye, the other had long red hair. They glared for a second, and then the blond one spat at the little immortal. He almost grunted as he felt the saliva trickling down his left cheek. Then He felt someone. It was none of them, that was for sure. But soon it would not matter.

"Time to say goodnight, young punk."

The redhaired produced a large machete. But he did not have the chance to use it. A large piece of steel emerged through his stomach, and the tip of it dripped the blood of the now gasping man. The blade was removed and the man fell lifeless. The other eyed the person that had just arrived. So did Kenny, who found himself grinning.

The blond man produced another machete. Kenny knew he was afraid. He was shuddering and the weapon trembled in his hands. The immortal stepped forward and the mortal stepped back, before turning and escaping as if the hounds of Hell were following him.

Kenny stood up and examined his saviour. A bald tall man dressed in a brown robe. This man placed the tip of the sword on the ground, and kept the blade in a vertical position. He clenched his hands over the top of the hilt and began to pray. Kenny kicked the corpse angrily.

"Why are you praying? He tried to kill me!" he protested.

His prayer finished, the priest stood up.

"All those who die deserve it. All but one." He said calmly, yet bearing a cold viciousness in his face. "I'm Jacob Kell. Who are you, young man?"

"My name is... Kenny... I am..." he stopped. He was on the verge of saying all the speech about being alone, a homeless boy whose parents had died and the usual pile of nonsense immortals used to buy. They would trust him and when distracted, there would be one head less to worry about. If he wanted to continue alive, with the watchers hunting around, he would need a strong man like Kell. He could not trust him however. Not with the reputation he had. But for the time being, it was his only choice if he wanted to keep his head and shoulders together.

"Oh, I heard about you." It was almost funny how Kell spoke. There was a certain mixture of mockery and evilness in his words. He felt like laughing but at the same time, he could imagine how ruthlessly Kell would kill him if he did.

"So did I. You were said to have a... posse with you." Kenny tried to sound steady, yet panic was nibbling every fibre of his muscles, stiffening his limbs. "They did the dirty work for you."

"These are hard times. My acolytes' blood became one with the blood the waging of this war has shed. But you... the blond little kid who has taken a lot of heads using not his strength, but his intelligence. You plan, and then you execute. An impressive mastermind!"

Kenny felt uneasy with Kell speaking in such a high praise. No one had ever told him that. A bitter sensation hit him, plunging the pride he was feeling into darkness. Besides, Kenny did not know whether he could take Kell seriously, not with the particular voice he had.

"You're trying to make me trust you, in order to take my head."

Kell's evil grin made Kenny's small legs shake before going numb again.

"I would, if you were a stronger immortal and if the watchers weren't around." Kell shrugged. "Where are you heading?"

"New York." The young-looking immortal replied.

"So do I. A Godly coincidence that two masterminds share their path."

"This is no design of God." Kenny spat up. Kell hid his sword inside his robe. His face transmuted into one of serene seriousness. No one would dare questioning this priest-looking man. The kid began to walk, slowly, casually, as a ten-year-old boy would, knowing that he had all the time in the world to reach his destination. "The watchers are winning the war." He sighed. Actually, time was ticking out for him. Maybe for all of them.


	2. Chapter 2

**Chapter II: The Shelter**

Victor Paulus stood at the door of the abandoned deposit on the outskirts of New York. He hesitated for a second. Should he walk in? Should he leave? He tried the door. Unlocked. He squeezed the knob and opened. Smell of rotten flesh pervaded his nostrils. He took a handkerchief off his pocket and covered his mouth and nose with it. He looked at the ghastly scene before him.

The deposit was half the size of an American football field. Dotted across the cement floor, there were five bodies. All engulfed in dry blood, all headless. Victor put his other hand under his shirt and held the cross he wore on his neck. He began to pray. He did not feel he had the stomach to be there. Darius might have. He had been through worst. But Darius was dead. And so were these immortals.

He numbly treaded forward and at one point his right foot kicked something. He looked down in dread, half-knowing what it was. He was right. A severed head. Its owner had been a young man with curly red hair. Richie Ryan. He had arrived looking for someone who wanted to stand up to the Watchers. Paulus' shelter was not the right place. But Richie had stayed and been one of the most helpful inside the shelter. If he had left, he might have remained alive.

He moved towards the end of the deposit, tottering over the pools of blood and past the corpses, recognising them all. Some merely by their body shape, others he had had to look at their heads, scattered not far from them. Grace Chandel, Benny Carbassa, Michelle Webster, and Robert and Gina de Valicourt.

He sat dejectedly on a chipped chair and took an old newspaper that was there, recognising it at once. It was what had made him engineer the shelter. He had foreseen what would be coming. He shook his head and drowned in pity. Darius would have acted more wisely, he thought before reading. How, he could not know.

-----

_September 23, 1997._

_ASTOUNDING REVELATION CONCERNING WATER DISEASE_

_Paris (EFE) In a disturbing, yet astounding revelation, an organisation revealed the names of the responsible parties for the Water Disease that caused over four hundred million deaths in France and Germany. But the disclosure entails a situation of enormous proportions: the existence of immortal people, people who can only die when their heads are removed from their bodies._

_The Watchers are an organisation that has existed in secrecy for over four hundred years, recording the activities of the immortals without ever interfering. According to Jack Shapiro, head of the Watchers, that changed when a lethal virus was released in the waters of Paris, causing a "bloodless massacre that cannot and must not be forgotten." Shapiro presented his organisation to the world yesterday in a press conference in the French Parliament, and revealed the identities of the heartless men behind the attack._

_(Four pictures of four different men, together forming a square. The first one was a hard-faced man, hair razed on the sides of the head, looking in profile. In white, over the coloured picture, it could be read: "Kronos"._

_The second picture, right to the other, showed a large bald man with beard, grinning at somebody to his left. The tip of an axe appeared in the lower part of the photograph. The caption read: "Silas"._

_The third one, below Kronos' picture, was a man with long black hair, staring wickedly at the camera. The picture was taken from a medical record, as evidenced by a caption on the right side. The nametag read: "Caspian"_

_The fourth one was slender and darkhaired, bearing a resemblance to Sean Connery in his early days as James Bond. The picture seemed to belong to a police file. The caption read: "Duncan MacLeod")_

-----

The door opened as the whine of the hinges disturbed Paulus. A man walked in and contemplated the scene with a flat face. He noticed Victor and began to draw nearer. The mortal examined him. The stranger had long hair falling below his shoulders and a finely shaved beard covered his haggard face. The man had aged badly. But not bad enough, he thought. Only a man used to seeing death would contemplate such a grim image without gesturing.

The man stopped before Richie's body and stared at it, then reached Paulus' position and said nothing. He simply gripped him rudely by the right wrist and examined it. Then the left. Not having found what he was looking for, the other one looked away with embarrassment, before returning his sight to the man before him.

"I'm sorry... I..."

"There is nothing to apologise. I understand you."

"Was it one of my kind?

"It was them. Why?"

"There was a quickening here. A huge one." The stranger motioned at the walls, where there were signs of burning. Then at the ceiling, which was not black as if there had been fire, and there were scattered, uneven traces of something that had left its mark. "Someone sold you."

Whoever this man was, he seemed to have a blurred vision of things. None of the people that were part of the shelter would have bargained with the watchers. Even if they were suddenly tired of being a coveted quarry and wanted to die.

There had been a case. Warren Cochrane, a mind troubled by an accidental death, a condition worsened by the mad hunt of the watchers. Cochrane had asked to each and every one of the people there to end his misery. The matter was discussed, and Grace Chandel took the burden.

"No one sold us." Paulus said, feeling an irritating anger grow inside him. But could he be absolutely certain that his words were true? "The watchers behead their prey all at once. So that no quickening is released."

The man nodded slowly. "Then someone was out of sync."

"Do you have a name, stranger?" Paulus queried.

"I'm Connor MacLeod of the clan MacLeod."

Paulus' face darkened. "One of your clan saved my life once."

"Sounds like Duncan." Connor replied casually, glancing around.

"I assume you've heard he was supposedly involved in the spread of the Water Disease."

"No more than I'm Maradona." Connor muttered. He eyed Paulus kindly. "I'm sorry. I've been away for too long. I'm getting used to being in the world again."

"No offence, my friend." Paulus smiled. "I'm Victor Paulus. I was... a friend of Darius."

"Nice to meet you." The Highlander stuck out his hand, which was shaken. He retrieved it slowly.

"What brings you to New York, Connor MacLeod?" Paulus asked calmly, standing up, so focused on the man before him he paid no heed to the corpses. "Were you looking for shelter?"

Connor grinned bitterly. Something had been lit up at the other's words. His eyes closed, then opened again. He began to blink repeatedly. He sighed out loudly.

"I'm in New York because I have to. So do all the others."

_AUTHOR'S NOTE: People from the US may not know Diego Maradona is an Argentine (retired) football ("soccer") player considered by most to be the greatest of all time._


	3. Chapter 3

**Chapter III: The Watcher **

Sitting on a chair, Joseph Dawson pressed dimly with his left index the A string on the fifth fret of his Fender Stratocaster as he touched the string. Then, stretching his hand a lot, he pushed with the ring finger the B string on the eighth fret as he touched the string repeatedly, strongly at first, and then he began to go slower, as the sound faded.

He put the guitar aside, and took a pencil that was resting on his right ear. He grabbed a notebook, and stared for a second at a stave full of different notes. Then he drew the notes he had just played. He left the notebook and the pencil on the floor. A fine job he had done. All in one night. It was the finest song he had ever written. Someone else would have to write some lyrics for it, somewhere in the future. And title it.

The door ahead of him opened and a shape walked in. Blinded by the outside lights, he squinted at the slender form of a blue-eyed woman, whose short hair framed her cute face perfectly. The door closed and he could make her out properly. She grinned only. He had not seen her in a long time. But still he felt the grin was appropriate under the circumstances. He raised a hand and waved as he returned the grin. She approached and sat beside him.

"Is it true, Joe?" she asked softly. Her voice was painful, contrasting the composure of her face. He breathed out.

"Yeah. I helped MacLeod out of the Sanctuary." His face, till then sober, went hard as he did on himself. "I only regret not being able to take the others out. It is cold-blooded murder, and you know it."

"Joe..." she stopped, struggling with herself. "I know." She whispered. "But that's not what I meant."

"Then...?" And he knew what was coming. He had waited that moment for too long. His heart pounded heavily. His legs - the stumps he could call legs - shook. His fingers twitched as if he were playing the song with the fastest tempo ever. "What?"

"Are you my father?" She asked it head-on, staring right into his eyes. Looking away would not have been fair for her. He had to say what he had wanted to say for almost thirty years. He owed her at least that.

"Yes, Amy. I am your father." At those words, her eyes went moist. One by one, tears began to slide down her face. Her mouth shrunk. She began to breathe heavily. Joe himself was rather moved after letting out the secret that had corroded his heart for a long time. She stood up, probably deliberating whether to leave or stay.

"Why didn't you tell me!" She snapped. Her face had gone red. Joe began to lose his composure. He loved that woman very much. She was the only evidence that he had ever existed, and would remain there when he was gone. He couldn't stand to see her like that.

"I... your father..." he mumbled, unlevelled by the situation.

"You are my father, damn it!" she shrieked. Then she sat down again, not sure as to what to do next.

"I'm... I wish I could mend for all these years..."

She did not reply. She simply hugged him warmly. Joe let all the emotion i He shook his head. "Only I started too late... especially with you"

"But at least you did... how did you get the guitar?"

"My last dinner. After all, I'm not gonna die of starvation, am I?" She smirked and hugged him again, as she whispered something in his ear. "You will keep my cane, right?" he uttered.

She nodded, and tears rolled down again. She got up and wiped them away. "It's time I leave."

"So long, Amy. Try to make things right."

"I will." She opened the door and turned before leaving. "Goodbye... Dad."

Joe watched her leave, pounded by the odd desire that Amy's mother had spilt the beans earlier. He smiled hopefully. One way or the other, the only pending issue had been settled. He grabbed his cane and stood up. "Hey!" he called out. The door opened and a man with an automatic in his hands appeared. "I'm ready." The man nodded. Joe began to limp out.

-----

Stefano Zanetti looked at the open space with delight. There were five acres of green ahead of him. A line of seven men, all holding old rifles, stood firmly. To his left, Roberto Flores was talking on the cell phone. To his right, the line, and Goran Milosevic delivering orders to his second hand. He grinned.

He was the head of the watchers. When Kronos and Caspian unleashed the Water Disease, he made the reports. Altered them he had, to make it look like a plot of the entire immortal race. It had been a hard work, but that had moved Shapiro to reveal the existence of immortals to the world... and of the watchers. But Shapiro had been reluctant to go further, so Zanetti had him killed, beheaded by his loyal men. The blame was pinned on the immortal Alex Raven. The watchers hunted her down and took her head. As Shapiro's second, he replaced him as head of the watchers. He met with presidents and ministers around the world and convinced them that the eradication of the immortal plague was crucial.

A black van pulled up and the side door opened. Two armed men got off. They grabbed Joseph Dawson by the arms and helped him down. A third man got off after Joe. They began to march towards them. Zanetti noticed both Flores and Milosevic had drawn near him and were staring at the marchers, especially focused on Joe.

Dawson ended up face to face with the three of them. Flores extended his hand. He looked uneasy. Dawson shook it, nodding. Milosevic did likewise. Again, Joe shook it. Zanetti smirked as he offered his hand. Joe spat at it and swiftly threw a punch at him, which connected Zanetti's chin. The head of the watchers fell to the ground as the armed men held Joe back. Quite a pathetic image it was to see three well-built men struggling to contain an old man without legs. Zanetti got up again and wiped off the blood on the left side of his mouth. He grinned at Joe.

"You shouldn't lay your sins on me, Joseph. Think about your actions, and pray the Lord forgives you."

"I have no repentance, Stefano. None." It was a firm, defiant response. Joe was motioned towards a spot, some steps ahead of the line of armed men.

He moved forward and stepped where he was told. Ahead of him, the seven men were loading their guns. Here it would end for him. The atrocities of the watchers would continue, unless their weak points were tackled, or more accurately, the butchers inside the organisation were butchered.

He did not repent anything. Helping Connor MacLeod out of the sanctuary had been the right thing to do. He felt he had owed at least that to Duncan. That had been right after Joe had summoned Amanda to her bar, where the watchers had got hold of her by surprise, without his being able to do anything. There he had known he had to save Connor. Unfortunately, he was caught shortly after he sent the Highlander away.

The other immortals in the sanctuary were beheaded before his very eyes, one by one. In a so-called grant of kindness, most of the immortals received a quickening in their departure. The head of the first fell. The one next to him received his quickening, and as he received it, his head fell too. The process continued with the third, the fourth, and with the others until the last one standing lost his head as well, with no one to receive his power. Joe had watched detachedly how the blood on the ground increased. Mass beheadings... and on holy ground...

It didn't matter anymore. Relief possessed him, and he tranquilly smiled at the line of armed men. The sentence was being read aloud. He paid no heed to it. He could almost recite it. Joe Dawson... bla bla bla... for treason... bla bla bla... shot... bla bla bla... whatever. The men aimed at him. The words his daughter had whispered in his ear came to him as the rifles fired and seven bullets, each of which found a place to nestle inside him, pierced his body.


	4. Chapter 4

**Chapter IV: The Hunt **

Upon the revelation of who had been responsible for the Water Disease, and upon their self-disclosure, the Watchers had had scores and scores of volunteers. It had made the American campaign for Vietnam look like nothing in comparison. One among the throngs of mortals eager to enlist to wipe out those soulless demons, Brad Miller felt he would get higher in the hierarchy.

He belonged to a family of haters: the highly ranked Nazi officer his grandfather had been had fled to Argentina with his wife and son following Hitler's suicide. Some years later he moved to the United States and became a Klansman. His father had been in NAM and still despised Asians. In his early thirties, single and with no strings attached, the son now was in the latest trend: hate immortals.

With the immortal activity completely focused on New York City, each Watcher had orders to spot, follow, and in the right moment, call for backup and bring him or her down. The individual assignments were part of the past. And now, he had his eyes set on the prey most wanted by the Watchers: Connor MacLeod.

He had spotted the Highlander when passing by what had been Victor Paulus' shelter, hoping to find an uninformed immortal that did not know of the purification the shelter had undergone. He had followed him for four days now. MacLeod stayed in a derelict house on Hudson Street. The place looked devastated. According to the records he could find, the last owner was a certain Rachel Ellinstein.

Tonight MacLeod was heading to Central Park. Brad followed him from a distance. He was impatient, and wanted to accost the Highlander and plunge a knife into his heart. Then he would draw out his machete, the one he kept next to his Watcher badge, and goodbye to the Scot for good. But he had to wait. Punishments among the Watchers were hard. And after hearing what had happened to the old Dawson, man, he'd better behave.

MacLeod turned into another street. Brad did the same and realised he had lost him. He also lost his cool and began to search him. He ran to a corner, then to another. He entered into a dark alley, hoping to see something. Before he realised, he had stepped into complete darkness. Then he saw it. The pale glint of moonlight, and a stiff glower, reflected in a blade. It disappeared from his sight as pain followed, in his stomach and going up, fthe skin there peeling sorely. He opened his mouth to shriek, but a firm hand cuffed him. Then he was released.

He fell down, holding the open gash in his stomach. It hurt like a thousand devils, for God's sake. He painfully looked up, and noticed Connor MacLeod glaring at him. Brad's sight blurred and his eyes failed.

"I hate to do this, but times are hard."

MacLeod whispered those words and turned away. Brad wanted to curse him, tell him the utmost profanities about his mother, but his tongue would not move. Darkness embraced him, and death with it.

-----

But not all the Watchers were as unsuccessful as Brad. Felicia Martins had the misfortune of finding that out. Having learned of the Watchers, she had had to withdraw from her rising career as a rock star, one her old friend Byron had helped her achieve before dying to Duncan MacLeod. Now she played in small bars, placed where the flashes were not likely to get her.

Unfortunately for her, a bunch of what she thought were old fans approached her as she left. She halted to grant their pathetic existences a little of her time, and get some lip-service to skyrocket her ego when she suddenly found herself knocked down and kicked violently on the side. Last thing she saw was a blade swinging over her neck.

-----

Morgan Walker shared the same fate. Having retired from his life as a recruiter of young models, he had settled as the owner of a small restaurant in New York. He thought the place was too crowded for him to be noticed. But things were not what they used to, and there had been more and more immortals around recently. He had arrived at his apartment one night after a long day, and the lights did not turn on when he flipped the switch. He never saw the machete slamming against his head.

-----

Nick Wolfe had been a policeman. As such, he could know when he was being followed. Cop instinct. One night, he met a stunning oxygenated blonde at a disco. Her breasts swung as she danced and he knew he had won the jackpot when she rubbed her gluteus against him. He had lured her to the bathroom, where he had only the chance to take off her top and briefly lick her breasts before a gang of at least five men appeared and shoved him against the floor. The blonde would claim the machete. Nick cursed her. If only he had fud first.

-----

The writing was on the wall for Gregor Powers. He had ceased caring decades ago. Duncan MacLeod had injected a little of desire to live in him, enough to make him return to Medicine school. There he had met Arianna, a German beauty with whom he fell in love. She had made life worth something for him again. But when the Water Disease occurred, the Watchers came for his head... but took Arianna's life instead.

That was the end for him. Watchers or not, he did not carry a sword anymore and wandered aimlessly through the streets of New York, trying hard to forget Arianna's words. _God give you style and gave you grace, Greg_. He would smile at that, and she would complete her sentence:_ he also put a smile upon your face_. And he did smile now... at the black van from where the masked men descended. He did not resist. The moment had come to meet his immortal friends in the afterlife. A new wish to live circulated through his veins in the very moment the blade touched his neck.

-----

Steven Keane had arrived during night in New York from Dublin. He had flirted with the attendants during the flight and engaged in conversation with one of them once they landed. They said farewell after ten minutes and he left the airport. There was not a single person left. Neither was a cab available. He had just sat down on a bench to wait when what he needed appeared. The driver was a scruffy ill-mannered Jamaican man that threw his suitcases in the trunk and sped up too abruptly once behind the wheel. He stopped at the lights and when he was supposed to move, he did not.

"Aren't you moving, lad?"

The driver turned with a white smile in his lips. Steven froze at the sight of a Walther in his hands. He cursed before he heard the whistle of the silencer and the cold pain of steel in his chest, fuelling up transient unconsciousness, which he knew would be only previous to the more permanent death the Watchers would bring to him.

-----

He woke up with a start. What a disgusting dream had that been. He glanced around and realised he was in the alley, surrounded by the stillness of darkness. He probably passed out given to tension. Or maybe MacLeod discovered him and knocked him down. He stood up, being gripped by the grandmother of all headaches, as he caught a glimpse of something nearby.

A queer sensation led him to touch his chest. It's not there. The wound is not there, he thought. And he was right, the wound was not there. But his torn tee shirt was, stained by dry blood. He looked up to find out Connor MacLeod sitting on a garbage can, with his arms crossed and a silly smile in his face.

"Yes... you are immortal, my friend."

"So what?" Brad swore as he drew out his machete. He lunged forward. Connor moved easily at a side and Brad collided against the garbage can. He landed heavily upon a heap of rotten food.

"Crude and slow. Your attack was no better than that of a clumsy child." He said with gaiety. "I like your hat."

Brad stood up, shaking off the banana peeling he had on his head, and attacked again. This time Connor unsheathed his blade at an amazing speed and as he parried the blow, he made a shallow cut in Brad's arm.

"I will get you, MacLeod. One way or the other." He put a hand in the inner pocket of his leather jacket, hoping to find his gun. Connor laughed as he produced the very weapon Brad was supposed to have. Brad cursed and went forward again. Connor dodged and kicked him really hard in the left knee. The watcher felt the noise of his bones cracking as he sunk in the floor amid his own cries of pain. Connor took aimed and emptied the gun on the immortal watcher's damaged leg.

"You won't change your mind, will you?" Connor asked, always gaily.

"F you!" Brad cried, feeling his blood trickling down his burning, stinging leg, as thoughts about amputation haunted him.

"Then..." Connor's face suddenly went serious. "There's no other choice."

Connor made his blade twist in his hand. Brad knew what was coming. Death. He did not mind. He preferred it to being one of those freaks of nature. Just like his grandfather would have rather than being a Jew or an African, or his own father rather than being Asian.

He thought of all them. The old Nazi endured the death of his wife in a car accident and died alone without anyone that cared for him, not even his own family. His father murdered an Asian couple in 1979, believing them to be spies. He was declared insane and locked in a madhouse.

Brad realised he had been wrong in following the family tradition, and that he wanted to remain alive. He opened his mouth to talk to MacLeod but no sound came. His vocal cords had just been severed by the katana of the Highlander, along with his neck.

_AUTHOR'S NOTE: The idea for this chapter is taken from one in a Stephen King book.I stole a couple of lines from Coldplay's "God put a smile upon your face" from the "Rush of Blood to the head" album_


	5. Chapter 5

**Chapter V: The IPS **

Late afternoon in New York City. The passengers of said vehicle descended slowly. A crew of the IPS, the Immortal Prevention Squad, was guarding the bus station on the lookout for any potential freak of nature that might have the wrong idea of visiting New York. The leader of them, Commander Eric Garfield, a skinny grey-haired officer in his mid forties, eyed the flocking people with distrust as his hands caressed a shiny shotgun. Any of them could be one.

Like Connor MacLeod of the clan MacLeod. He had met the Scottish freak in the mid-eighties, when MacLeod had been questioned following the death of Iman Fasil in the garage of the Madison Square Garden. From square one, Garfield had found something disturbing about him. But nothing could be proved. In the end, all the murders by beheading were pinned on the Kurgan, the so-called strongest immortal ever, who was found beheaded in an abandoned bakery, while the Highlander married the Forensics hooker Brenda Wyatt and fled to Scotland.

"Check that couple." He heard the comment of his second, the Lieutenant John Stern, as Stern pointed at a blond kid in a sports jacket that walked beside a man in a brown robe. Garfield examined the man. There was something in him that was disturbing.

"Tell them to stay sharp. I'll approach them."

Garfield rushed to the exit of the station and selected the priest and the kid out. The two of them obeyed without objections. Garfield motioned at one of his men to join him.

"Can we be of any help, officer?" the priest asked kindly.

"What brings you to New York, father?"

"Abbot, officer." The reply was calm yet filled with a peculiar tone. "Abbot Bruno Dolore."

"OK, abbot." Garfield replied, wondering if the queer accent was really from Italy as his eyes fixed on the youngling. "And this boy is?"

"His name is Corey." Dolore answered as he patted the kid's head. The boy nodded foolishly with a broad smile on his lips. "His parents died recently." The kid looked down, sadness prone to appear in his face. "I was due to come here so I was authorised to deliver him to the local orphanage."

"Oh..." Garfield was about to mention something about his obligation to check their clothes. He did not like having to inspect an abbot and a boy for weapons but that was what the IPS was there for: try and spot and terminate any immortal arriving in town. The priest would have to understand. But something in the rear part of the line startled him. There was a man who looked extremely uneasy by the presence of the IPS. He motioned at his man to go there. "I'm sorry to disturb you, gentlemen. Good afternoon."

He approached. It was a tall, well-built man with short hair that was shifting in his place too much for Garfield's comfort. The men drew nearer and Stern stopped Garfield.

"It might be the immortal Liam O'Rourke." Stern whispered as he punched a button in his palmtop. A coloured picture of a person very similar to the suspect, wearing a prison outfit, appeared in the screen.

"O'Rourke? Irish?"

"Yep. He was involved in the Civil War. According to the file, he was convicted for a bombing in the early thirties. He was released ten years ago."

"That's... 1996. Right in time to join Kronos' ranks." Garfield put a bullet in his shotgun. "Seize him."

-----

Kenny had wanted to applaud Kell. His performance as the abbot Dolore had been perfect, rivalling with the best theatrical actors he had been able to see. His own acting had not been bad. But now he was desperate to get away for he knew what was coming. There had been a third immortal in that bus, to whom they had only nodded, and it had to be that immortal they were going after. Despite this, the movements of the IPS seemingly amazed Kell. His tugs at the alleged priest's sleeve were worthless.

"Watch and learn." Kell muttered coldly. "And be ready to run."

Kenny felt half-relieved by learning that Kell was considering the danger. However, he wondered if he would be able to run fast enough to escape a dozen mortals armed with shotguns.

The guards were closing in on the immortal, who had already noticed and was fleeing. Kenny noticed that officer, whose nametag read Garfield, was kneeling to take aim. A second later he heard the deafening blast of the weapon and the immortal was hit, falling down and rolling on the floor.

"Kell, we have to move!" he whispered.

"Be ready. I'll tell you," was the calm reply.

Kenny's hands began to tremble, even more when he noticed that the fallen immortal was recovering on the floor as the IPS surrounded him. What startled him the most was that this immortal was looking at him. In his eyes he read something he had never seen before in someone this close to death: a strange image of deliverance.

One of the members of the squad fired again and that immortal lay on the floor, gasping by the wound on his right shoulder. Kenny paid heed to the man with the minute computer, who was leaving the artefact in his car and taking out a long machete. 

"Holy st!" he cursed, tugging at Kell. He had been in other states where immortals were taken to an already-lost trial to then meet definite death. Here, they were swifter: this squad got rid of them on the spot.

"Calm down, kiddo." Kell mumbled.

The immortal was shot yet again and he fell, barely breathing and barely moving, though his eyes were again fixed on Kenny. The 800-year-old boy gave a step forward as four of the squad held the Irish immortal clung to the floor by the limbs. He saw the officer that had questioned them fire in the immortal's stomach. The wounded man spat blood. He saw behind teary eyes the blade approaching against his neck. He stared into the sky and let out a wild shriek to the others:

"Run, you fools!"

Then he lost his head.

Kenny and Kell were already out of the station and fleeing by a lateral street that led to a large avenue. Kenny heard the cry and stopped, his heart feeling the angst of the sacrifice of that immortal, whoever he was. Kell lifted him up and loaded the kid on his shoulders as if Kenny was a potato bag.

"We have to keep moving, idiot!" he cursed the kid.

-----

Garfield stared at the corpse of O'Rourke, as one of his men picked it up and from a distance, tried to send it into a black bag. The soldier raised his arms like a basketball player and sent the head. The leader stared at O'Rourke's pleased smirk, affixed on his face as it dove in the air and landed inside the bag.

"Three points!" the man said as he hit another one's hand.

"Hey!" Stern addressed them rudely. "Quit playing and clean up the mess, dammit!"

"Yessir!"

The men moved to work. Stern offered a cigarette to Garfield, who rejected it. The second gave a smoke and the fumes flew up in the dusk. The leader stared at the shapes of it then posed his eyes on his friend, who was at least a head shorter.

"What is it, Eric?" Stern asked him.

"It's..." Garfield looked into his friend's eyes. "I don't know."

"You hate this job, right?" Stern whispered. "So do I. It's not the same as when we enrolled."

"Right. Ever thought we'd be here when we were in the Academy?"

"I might have." Stern replied coarsely as he smoked again. "Except for the immortals part... and this manhunt."

"I know. It was all about nailing Russell Nash, remember?"

Stern smirked. "Yeah. Who knows where in hell he is now?"

_AUTHOR'S NOTE: I made a little fun with the name of the abbot. Bruno Dolore is almost a literal translation of Bruce Payne. Bet you noticed the "Lord of the Rings" line so there's nothing to say about that... except "No, O'Rourke will not return as Liam the White."_


	6. Chapter 6

**Chapter VI: Unintended Casualty **

Ottawa, Canada. Inside the International Airport, a longhaired man with a large forehead and a hairline that started almost at his ears, hidden behind a hat was checking his passport. The girl at it stared at the photograph then stared at him. He smiled stupidly and she grinned out of compromise in return. She handed it back to him.

"Thank you, Mr. Van Haard. Next!"

Van Haard took his passport and headed out of the airport. He tucked the passport inside the coat of his sports suit and got into a taxi. He gave an address and laid back to stare through the window.

Frank Van Haard was an alias. His true name was Katana. He had been born 600 years ago in the village of Zeist, in the Netherlands. He had been a general, a very good general. However, as it happens to everyone who experiences the taste of power, he wanted more. A couple of lifetimes after his mortal death in a senseless war, he overthrew the local governors and became dictator of Zeist. However, things did not were as simple. Especially when it had been lust for power what moved him, and when there had been other immortals nearby.

By then, the now wormfood Methos was in the area, and he made up a little resistance cell. Katana defied him but the other refused and rode away to return some months later with two other immortals: one was Katana's old friend Juan Sanchez Villalobos Ramirez, the other was the one everyone had great hopes on to defeat the Kurgan: the Highlander Connor MacLeod.

Friendships never meant much to Katana, let alone in times of war. Ramirez appointed MacLeod as the leader of the attack. They failed miserably. Ramirez and MacLeod were the sole survivors of the massacre. However, Katana's apprentices, Corda and Reno, lost their heads against the Highlander and the Spaniard. Not that they had been very good anyway.

Despite being the ruler, Katana had appointed a tribunal of priests to decide on disputes. The war was considered a matter within the tribunal's scope. Katana wanted their heads, but the tribunal ruled that they were banished, and sent back to wherever they came from. Shortly after that, his own men overthrew Katana, believing him to be weak enough to abide by the tribunal's decision. Maybe he had been, but too weak to be unable to endure the desire for more power than the one he had.

Now he was in America. He had felt this need, so irresistible, so tempting, to travel to the other big continent. He knew what that meant. Ramirez had explained it too well. The legendary pull indicating the time of the Gathering, when the remaining immortals would battle to the last. If Katana won, he would get the Prize. But the only Prize he wanted was to remain in Zeist, now a commune, one where he stayed a lifetime every century. A place he had been forced to left, and where he longed to return. He wondered who were the other lucky ones that had gone so far, especially with the Watchers hunting them...

-----

Connor MacLeod woke up in the mattress he slept on, inside of what had been his bedroom. He had felt a quickening nearby. More than that, he had sensed the cry of the soul of the dead immortal erupting from the dead body, rising as part of the quickening into the air to find someone fit enough to dwell in and had gone away to where all lost quickenings go, having been unable to find a breathing resting place.

He grasped his katana as he felt another quickening, this one much dimmer, not belonging to an immortal, not even to someone meant to be immortal. Connor went to the closed door of the devastated room he slept in and placed his hand on it. He felt the heartbeat of the person on the other side. It was slow and calm without flaws. A young person indeed. He opened the door.

"Connor MacLeod?" the question was asked as if they were at a hotel and Connor was opening the door, rather than a derelict and fallen-to-pieces house into which the Highlander was the only one supposed to be in.

He stared reluctantly at the woman in front of him. A pretty shorthaired girl wearing a neat suit, her eyes behind a pair of slim glasses. He felt again her quickening, and not a single trace of deceit in her.

"Who are you?"

"My name is Amy Thomas... you met my father."

"I don't remember." He closed the door curtly, but she put her shoe in the way and pushed open.

"Old, bearded, carrying a cane. He took you out of the Sanctuary."

"Come in." Connor said, checking if there was someone else around. He closed the door and locked it. "It's dangerous these days to come visit me." He spoke tauntingly.

"Why, Highlander? You are going to rape me?" she replied as she smiled calmly.

"I might..." he defied gaily.

"No, you wouldn't. That would make you the Kurgan and me..."

"I got your point!" Connor halted her. "How did you find me?"

"Where else would you stay?"

"What do you want?" Again, a stiff, cut-off question.

"I want to help you make up a resistance team. The Watchers have gone too far."

"No way. Now get out." He barked, always the gentleman.

"My father died to save you, Connor. You owe him at least that."

"That's why I refuse. You will die if you oppose them."

"Then what are you doing here?" she asked perplexed.

"The time of the Gathering has come. Unfortunately, chances are there will be no one left after these..."

"There's still hope." She tossed a cane to him. He stared at it intrigued. "Twist the handle. Like a sword cane." Connor did so and the handle loosened. He removed it and he took from inside the cane a large paper. There were names and locations scribbled on it. "If you want to take them down, those are the powerful jerks that must fall."

"Oh..." Connor halted, his head receiving warning signs. Minor quickenings gathered at the door, now scattering inside the building. He grabbed his coat and produced his katana.

"What is it?"

"You were followed." Connor replied distantly glancing at the door. "They're already here. Stay hidden."

No sooner did he speak than the door was kicked open. Three gunmen walked in, all wearing the black and blue outfit of the IPS. Connor lunged at one of them and slashed his throat. The second one fired and missed, unlike MacLeod who stabbed him quickly enough to have time to dispatch the third one with a vertical slice that killed the man.

"Oh my...!" Amy cried, ghastly eyeing the blood-dripping blade.

"Come, we're moving."

They left the room into what had been Connor's treasures room. He sensed at least three people on the left, where the stairs were, and three more on the right, where the rear door was. He heard a shotgun being loaded and turned panicky. Amy was holding one of the shotguns in his hand. He stared in surprise.

"I promised him I would help you however I could..."

Connor was gripped by the peculiar sensation of owing his life to someone he had never truly met. He wondered how good this man must have been to save Connor's life and lose his own in the meantime. Someone like that was worth meeting. And he did not even know his name.

To their left, three soldiers appeared. Amy fired at one and hit. The other succeeded in shooting Connor in the shoulder. The Highlander gasped as he stormed forward and sliced him. Behind him, Amy was finishing the third one with a shot that blew the man's brains out, staining the walls with red.

"Damn!" Connor swore holding his wounded shoulder, from which blood erupted abundantly. "Let's move."

Then he heard a gunshot and a dim cry behind him. He turned. Amy was falling over him, mortally wounded by a bullet in her heart. He gazed into her eyes, moist with pain and fulfilment. The author of the shot had been a man that survived his slice. She managed to smile before passing. Connor left her and kicked the man's face so hard that the soon-to-be corpse's jaw dislodged completely. He grabbed a shotgun and stormed away through the stairs. Oddly enough, there were no guards on that exit. He fled away without a fixed destination, but now with a purpose: avenge the strangers that had died to save him.

-----

Eric Garfield and John Stern eyed the corpse of Amy Thomas, the mortal woman that had been killed. They recognised the Watcher tattoo. Garfield shook his head as Stern breathed heavily out. The other IPS members were awaiting their leaders inside the squad van.

"This is it, man." Garfield said angrily. "This has gone too far."

"There's nothing we can do about it." the reply was low-voiced, coarse by the influx of cigarette.

"Yes, we can." He pointed emphatically at the tattoo. "If at least one of them thought they were wrong, then this might indeed be a serious mistake. I never truly believe in the pile of lies they sold the world."

"Yeah." Stern lit up a cigarette. "None makes up a so damn ing perfect plan. Not even immortals."

"We are two then. But the question is: what are we gonna do 'bout it?"


	7. Chapter 7

**Chapter VII: The Gathering **

Three days later.

"I can't believe I'm saying this, but... you are better off dead."

Consumed by pain, Connor MacLeod spoke at the grave of his beloved adoptive daughter Rachel Ellinstein. It was a cloudy chilly night, and it was threatening to rain. In his right hand was a lantern he had stolen from a warehouse. In his left, a flower he had picked from a garden. He placed it by the grave and raised his head, feeling the premonition. Someone was there, someone with a very long life.

He opened his shabby, worn-out beige mackintosh and produced his thousand-year-old katana as the sight of his own breathing blurred the view. The beacon began to search for whoever was out there. It glided through graves and tombstones until it landed on a still pair of legs ahead of him. Connor slowly directed the light up through the body of that immortal. A very interesting female figure... a blonde, wearing a loose raincoat, and a strange expression in her face, one that was halfway between fear and defiance.

"Who are you?" he demanded.

"My name's Kyra."

Connor had heard about her. First from his mentor Ramirez, who regarded her as a divine warring beauty worthy of being known not as a Spartan, but as a Spartiate. Then from Duncan, who was neither as poetic nor as focused on her fighting skills. Both opinions had one thing in common: she was indeed attractive.

"I'm Connor MacLeod of the clan MacLeod."

She began to approach silently when she halted, startled by the same thing that startled Connor. More immortals were joining the reunion. Kyra opened her raincoat and revealed an ancient Spartan sword.

"One can never be too sure, even here." She commented acidly.

"Bravo!" Someone applauded. "Truly remarkable words, Kyra. You haven't lost your wit, my goddess of the war!"

Connor stared at Kyra, on whose face a tiny smile was forming. He pointed the light ahead of him where he made out a familiar figure. A longhaired man, dressed in black, and covering his face with a cap and glasses, all of the same colour. He was standing by a grave with a large and expensive tombstone that included a small gargoyle, which he was holding as if it were a buddie. Kyra slowly joined that figure and Connor's face frowned in recognition as she embraced that man.

"Thought you were dead." She said as she pecked him on the cheek.

"I am still alive!" The man said as a second-rate theatre actor, solemnly overacting his words.

"Straight from the hills of Zeist." Connor remarked.

"Hello, MacLeod. It's been... a long time." Katana offered his hand at the Highlander. Connor eyed him with distrust, then focused on the hand. He stretched out and shook it. "What is it, a high school reunion? Everybody is here!" Katana commented with a broad smile as he looked with his eyes for the new buzzes that were felt.

"The more the merrier..." Connor uttered cynically.

"You haven't lost your sense of humour, MacLeod."

In the stillness of the night, the dim cry of the grass being stepped on could be heard. They turned to face the approaching image of a hooded man, wearing a brown robe. At his right, a small boy was traipsing with fear in his eyes. Connor recognised the young Kenny. But who was the other man?

"So here we are." The hooded man spoke. Only his mouth was at sight. "After four hundred years, you and I, Connor MacLeod, meet again."

"Who are you?"

"Oh, Connor. We were friends, remember? But we were both so new at the Game... you probably did not even realise I was into it too." The hooded man removed the hood, and Jacob Kell glared at the other Highlander, who stirred at the sight of his former friend. "But I've been there all this time. Studying you, following you. Stripping you of all your beloved ones. Like your sweet mother.

A flash of a woman dying at the stake, fire consuming her, in Glenfinnan in 1555 hit Connor.

"Sarah Barrington.

The image of a red-haired woman hanging without life from one of the trees of a British estate in 1803, being mourned by her husband and two children unbalanced him more.

"Brenda Wyatt.

Connor remembered Scotland in 1987. Having believed himself the last immortal, he had panicked upon the faintest presence of an immortal before a car driving on the wrong side of the road hit the car where he and his wife were. She died instantly, he survived and his wounds healed before her, enhancing the horror he felt upon her departure to the afterlife.

"Rachel Ellinstein."

The memories of the explosion of his antique shop in 1992, which took the life of his sweet adoptive daughter, were the last straw. Connor stood in a fighting stance, his katana over his head targeting at Kell as his left hand worked as an aim.

"This is no time for personal vendettas." Kyra stood between them. "You have a name?" she demanded.

"I'm Jacob Kell."

At the mention of the name, Connor could see how her face stretched in anger. She approached swiftly and punched the bald man, whose head simply jerked back with a cynical grin.

"You son of a b... you've broken the Rules!"

Kell smirked at that as he wiped the blood off his face. Katana scrutinised the young boy. Kenny eyed him with defiance in his eyes. The former general smiled. This kid was strong, very strong, despite his looks. However, he appeared to be, like everyone else out there, appalled by the revelation she had just made.

"So here we are." Katana said. "The last princes of the universe. Fighting for survival like never before."

"Indeed." Kell commented. "But the question is: what do we do?"

"We team up." Connor said moving to the middle of them all. "I've been given inside information. They can be brought down. It won't be easy, but it is possible."

"And why should we trust that information... or you, MacLeod?" Kenny challenged.

"Because, little punk, the Watchers who gave it to me died to keep my pretty head above my shoulders." Kenny was taken aback by that. "And why should we trust YOU? You, of all people. You've taken the heads of many immortals by treason." Kenny dared not speak. "But again, why should we trust Jacob? If she's right, he's broken the Rules, so he's capable of anything. Or why should we trust Katana?" Connor began to gesticulate. "He's power-lust itself. Or why should I trust Kyra, whom I never met?"

"What's your point, Highlander?" Kyra moaned.

"My point, lass, is that we have to trust in each other. One simple reason: there's nobody left. We can run and hide, but they'll eventually find us. Or we can stand up to them. I'm not saying we will all make it out of here with our heads above our shoulders, but remember: they are shot and they die. Their bones break and don't heal." Connor notched down his voice as it went graver. "Together we might succeed where alone we would fail." 

Silence was all that was left. After some moments during which everyone stared silently at the ground, Katana nodded approvingly as he stiffed up his lower lip. "I only hope this is not what you told the Zeist rebels..."

"Heh heh. No." Connor replied gaily. "I told them you were a pansy ale." Katana grinned at that reply.

"Fine for me. I'm in." Kyra drew out her sword and placed the tip of it on the floor.

"War is always a thrill. Especially with my goddess." Katana produced a peculiar broadsword and put the tip of it by Kyra's.

Connor joined his to theirs. He glowered at Kenny. The little blond boy hesitated. Having spent some time with Kell, he had been mentally bombed with all his chatter about revenge against MacLeod. But on the other hand, the Highlander was right. Besides, Kell was soured for something that was four hundred years old! He drew out his minute sword and put it with the others. 

"Jacob Kell." Connor spoke. "This is beyond you and me now. If we make it to the very end, we will settle it in the proper way. In the meantime, no back-stabbing or treason. Right?"

Kell's mouth stretched into a grin. He produced his sword and positioned it with the others.

"I can play by that, Connor." Kell's grin turned into a growl. "But when it's over, I'll see to your death."

"Ooh. How exciting!" Connor mocked with a smile. The others laughed while Kell gritted his teeth, finding himself the fool of the party.

"Well, lady and gentlemen." Katana withdrew his weapon. All the others did the same. "Where to now?"

"There's a place we might find useful." Connor waved at the others as he moved away and out of the cemetery. Kyra grabbed Katana's arm and both followed. Kenny stood by Kell, staring into Jacob's face. He could see bitterness and rage struggling inside of him.

He began to move, silently imploring to whoever was governing their designs that Kell played with them. For if he didn't, he might be a hindrance that would have to be dealt with. But dealing with him would make things easier for the Watchers... as not dealing would.


	8. Chapter 8

**Chapter VIII: Street Riot **

Inside the abandoned bakery that had been rebuilt into the central of the Immortal Prevention Squad, a group of six officers were around a table, intent on what late-night television was offering on a calm night. Neither of them was thirty, probably not even twenty-five. They looked fresh and childish as their eyes devoured the scene of the film.

Michael Douglas had just walked into his apartment, following a meeting with the psychologist Sharon Stone played. Jeanne Tripplehorn, his fiancée, appeared. What followed was his approach, his pushing her against the back of the sofa and a posterior round of non-missionary sex.

"I love this part." A dark-curly-haired guy who looked sixteen, if surely older, uttered.

"Films like this make you want to go to the shrink." Another, a bald African-American man added.

"Imagine getting an immie chick like Sharon for an inquiry..." A third one, bearing an evident Latin heritage, suggested.

"Yeah!" they all chanted together.

Then they heard something that killed their mood. Something they had not ever heard, and had never thought they would get to hear. The Latin guy stood up and eerily stared at the red blaze before his eyes as the emergency siren howled its way into their ears.

"Sht." One of them cursed.

"All right, people. Get ready." 

Barking orders as he walked in, Eric Garfield put on his teflon coating and loaded a shotgun. He put a box of bullets inside a pocket and loaded his trusty .9 mm to then place it in the holster at his waist. Behind him, John Stern sucked a cigarette as he was through with the preparations. He scowled at the men, who were nervously preparing.

It was the first time the alarm wailed. It had been set up in case a citizen saw, or even worse, had, an incident involving immortals. However, the eternal fellows had been very careful when it came to fighting since the Water Disease. Stern could count with one hand the reports around the country on immortals being spotted while receiving a quickening. He finished his smoke and tossed the cigarette. The men were to a certain extent supposed, though not allowed, to be nervous. Even he was uneasy.

"Come on, people. We're moving!" he barked as he went towards the car he shared with his old friend and colleague Garfield. He sat behind the wheel. Garfield sat next to him and exchanged a suspicious glance with him. When the others were in their cars, he hit the gas and the car left the station.

-----

Garfield found the circumstances strange. In 1985, they had found the corpse of the Kurgan in the place where the IPS central now functioned. And now they left from there to find and behead another immortal. The scene of a crime became the starting point on their way to commit another crime. Legally authorised, but a crime nonetheless.

"What do you say, John?" he asked his friend.

"There were reports for at least 50 immortals seen near the city in the last two months. It could be anyone."

"No, you fool." Garfield chuckled bitterly. "I mean, which are our chances against whoever is there?"

Stern grimaced and shook his head. "They're kids. Mummy and Daddy's little pride out to the world to make their folks proud by getting rid of immortals. I doubt they'd manage to catch a bunch of amateur robbers."

"Sir!" The radio rattled. "The PD is calling for backup."

"Really?" Garfield replied rather pissed-off at the news. "Why do you think the alarm was on, moron?"

The radio died. 

"Punks!" they cracked together, and laughed about the coincidence for a few streets. They sobered when they noticed that they were only a street from the report place. They could see some police cars parked across the street.

"Who will it be this time?" Garfield wondered aloud as Stern parked and both got off. He could see a shape in the distance, tall, glaring, sword-armed.

-----

Leaning nonchalantly on a stolen Harley Davidson that roared like a baby and clothed in black leathers, the immortal regarded the law-enforcement officers that were there because of him. Only because of him. There were three police cars and now there were three cars of the IPS, the Inevitable Pack of Shitheads. All that fuss for some mortals that had passed to the afterlife.

He kicked and hit the dead body of a bearded pauper trimmed in worn-out and smelly clothes, who still held a whisky bottle in his hands. It had all started with this one. The beggar had asked for a dime. He had refused and the beggar insisted. He delivered an uppercut on the pauper's stomach and without delay grabbed him by the head and made his neck twist until it broke. Then a pedestrian about the size of an American footballer, who was for some reason infuriated by the murder, would rush at him angrily. He dodged a downward punch and kicked hardly the intruder between the legs, in the crotch, where the man surely felt his expectancy of having children fading into nothing. A second kick, straight into the jaw, killed the man.

The NYPD had arrived by then. Less than two minutes since everything had started. A very good time, he conceded. A fat officer tried to talk him out of it, to calm down. He guffawed so loud that his voice echoed. The officer drew out his authorised gun and neared him. When he was at range, the immortal lunged at the speed of sound and snatched the gun out of the hand. The cop barely realised before being shot.

"Sir!" one that seemed to be the leader of the shitheads spoke through a megaphone, interrupting his thoughts. "Please desist."

He laughed out loud. Sir? Was not he supposed to be an abomination escaped from Hell? Whatever. That grey-haired officer had amused him. That would allow him an extra period of life. He scowled at the others. The IPS men were drawing in, forming a semicircle around him. He scrutinised them and grinned. They were kids, disguised in teflon and helmets, but kids nonetheless. Panicked green chickens that could not even hold their eyes and were easily stared down.

One of the dopes made the mistake of approaching too much and he took the chance. He pulled the lettuce by the gun and elbowed hardly against his face. The others froze in pure fear.

"Imagine all the people..." he began to sing loudly without hitting the right tune.

With those words, he fired at one of them. The bullet was aimed to the head. It crushed the helmet and a mass of red was all that could be seen then. The others retreated and hid behind the cars. He took aim at the vehicles, to shoot like he had done before with the cop's gun. But this was a shotgun. Where holes were made with the gun, it was easy to guess what would happen.

"... Resting all in peace!" he continued his heartless song. "YooOOOUUUUU!"

He fired. A police car exploded, and the debris and fire made the one next to it blow up too. The blast killed the four cops belonging to those vehicles as well as three of the shitheads that had hidden behind them.

"Hold your fire!"

The order came from behind the uprising red-and-yellow mass of fire. Someone who was next to the joker who had called him 'sir' gave it, trying to avoid the coming bloodletting. He smirked. Another one that would not bite the dust. In other times, he would have slain them all, but now, it was something gratifying to leave a couple of pitiful mortals to whine about his might. Ant these two, with few, had earned it. A pity, however. He had not been involved in a gunfight since the Wild West.

He shot and one of the IPS cars exploded. The blast hit three more shitheads hiding behind its doors fatally. Only a cop, the two soon-to-be survivors, and a red-haired dude without any helmet, greener than the grass on the other side remained. He began to tread forward, firmly, his weapon aiming. The cop remained still, though fear exuded through his pores. The lucky ones were cooler. He smirked when he focused on the red kid. His crotch had gone bluer and his legs were shaky. Poor kid, he was surely mistaking him for the fucking Terminator!

He shot at the head and the kid went redder, now looking like tomato sauce as he hit the ground. He felt a sting in his shoulder. A bullet fired by the cop. He extended his arm and fired with one hand. The cop ducked behind the car's door. But the shot was not aimed at him. The car exploded, taking the cop's life with it. As another mass of fire expanded, he approached his two favourites, who had been blown hardly to the floor by the wave of hot air just occasioned. They appeared to be sore. He pointed threateningly.

"Spread the word." He growled preternaturally. "The End of Time has arrived in New York. And no one, not even you, Irrelevant Pieces of Scum, can do anything about it."

Garfield grimaced in pain, spotting his shotgun a few steps ahead, not far, but farther than he was able to do. His arms were stiff and unable to grasp his handgun. Stern was lying with his back to the floor. His left arm, useless for anything except for shielding the light from the wind when the craving for a cigarette attacked, was shattered and it irked him hellishly. God, he indeed badly needed a cigarette now. Would this immortal light one for him? At this point, he was considering asking.

The immortal turned and hoofed past the scattered corpses. All started with a dead beggar. No, hold on a second. It went further back in time. True, that virus he had spread in the waters, which died naturally a week later. It had not worked then but it worked now. The posterior immortal slaughter had sped things and The Gathering was here and now. He would achieve the Prize and mankind would still surrender to him. He turned the bike on and made it roar a bit before riding away, cachinnating evilly as he disappeared in the horizon...

_AUTHOR'S NOTE: The film the IPS are watching is, obviously, "Basic Instinct," a film I've liked for more than ten years. Of course, Kronos' song is Lennon's "Imagine," not a song or an artist I like, but the idea came after I learned that Valentine Pelka is playing him in theatre._


	9. Chapter 9

**Chapter IX: Three Of A Kind **

_The village of Zeist, 1440. _

Amid the smell of corpses and burnt houses, sympathising with the saddened mothers, fathers, brothers, sisters and sons who had lost someone, the outlander moved slowly through the bloodstained soil. She held her black dress with her fingers, to prevent its tarnishing. She halted by a house, the only dwelling that had stood untouched by the bloodletting that had gone on outside.

A wailing haggard woman limped past her, cradling in her arms the lifeless corpse of a baby. She looked away. In all its years, mankind had not yet learnt that war may not be the best means to achieve something. The swiftest yes, but not the best.

Her eyes scrutinised a pile of corpses nearby and she drew near it, feeling the tingling sensation that she understood as an omen. An immortal was among all that pile of rotten bodies. Probably not reborn yet, probably stirring. Or probably alive as an eternal being already yet physically unable to break free, prone to die again by suffocation.

A hand was moving. She rushed there and removed the corpse of a teenage boy hideously slashed in the face. She saw the face of a longhaired man, terrorised by his being there, among a pile of rotting flesh.

"Help! Someone is alive!" she called out.

But nobody was listening. The village of Zeist had been attacked by a coalition of other villages. Zeist had the wealthiest crops, crops that had been stolen. Entire harvests had been destroyed. Families had been terminated. Everybody was drowned in his or her own grief, and did not care about anybody else. She dragged that person out by herself, exerting beyond what she thought herself capable of.

"What... how...?" the man gasped, taking a lung of fresh air.

"I'll tell you." She sat on the soil, now careless whether her dress would stain or not, and sighed. "As soon as we get out of here."

-----

Katana woke up. Everything was dark. He rubbed his brow and sweat wetted his hand. He had not dreamt of his death in more than a century. It was disturbing that those dreams haunted him again. The dread of being choked to death by all those lifeless pieces of dead human meat invaded him again and he stirred.

He looked around. Connor MacLeod was peacefully sleeping a few steps ahead of him, leaning against a wall. To Katana's left, Jacob Kell snorted loudly, disturbingly. Even in sleep he continued being a nuisance, Katana thought. At Kell's legs, Kenny was stretched, using Jacob's legs as a pillow. Katana thought about that kid for a second. Not a kid, an 800-year-old man trapped in a small body, unable to stand a proper fight, unable to fully know the physical pleasures growth brings with it, and unable to be taken as seriously as he should be. To Katana's right, Kyra was sitting on a chair against the wall, her coat still on, with her Spartan sword trapped between her legs, the grip of it resting against her breasts. She was supposed to be guarding, but she had nodded off. He gazed in amazement.

Kyra, Katana's first teacher, the woman who had delivered her wisdom on the futility of war, having been herself a warrior in her days. Lessons that Katana had forgotten when power had embraced him, and that he painfully remembered when power let him go. Kyra had trained him, shaped him... even loved him on occasions. Their departure had been something spontaneous. One day she unilaterally decided he was ready and parted before he woke up, after a night of unforgettable manifestations of lust.

He stood up and tiptoed by her. She was beautiful. She had won his heart from day one. He stuck out a hand and tenderly caressed her hair. His hand went lower to stroke her cheeks. She grinned dimly in response to his touch. He touched her lips with his thumb and withdrew his hand as his conscience commanded, before he dared go further down.

She half-opened her eyes and found him there, gawking foolishly at her. She smiled and then rubbed her eyes with her knuckles and for a second, she appeared to be a goddess, his goddess. Then she stood up in fuzz wielding her sword, eager to thrust at whoever dared approaching.

"Kyra..." Katana whispered.

"I fell asleep! Damn me!" she cursed in a very low voice.

"It's OK." He said soothingly. She returned to her chair, pissed-off at herself. Katana squatted by her.

"It's not. What if they had come?" she moaned.

"They didn't." He said with a calm, charming voice mimicking not very well a British accent.

"I can't sleep." Kenny appeared, scratching his head, barely wearing a tee shirt and a silly Donald Duck underwear. "Kell is a roaring engine."

"Welcome to the team." Katana joked. "Want a cuppa coffee?"

-----

"So you tried to kill Duncan... twice?"

Despite it was her late friend Duncan MacLeod they were discussing, Kyra found hilarious the fact that Kenny had attempted to get rid of the Highlander and had been close to succeeding. She had listened in rapt amazement Kenny's rant about his meetings with the Highlander.

"Yeah." Kenny sipped a bit, enjoying the attention the beautiful Spartan was giving him. Katana was to his right and Kyra to his left, each with a mug of coffee in hands, inside the improvised kitchen they were in. "I just wanted to survive... I never really trusted an immortal, except for Amanda. "

"It's understandable." She yawned. "And you've survived for 800 years. Better trained immortals did not make it that long."

"How was he like?" Katana asked. "I never met him."

"Duncan..." Kyra stared at some point in the ceiling as if she were a high school girl in love with the quarterback of the football team. Katana and Kenny glanced at each other and rolled their eyes back without her noticing, sharing a smirk as they did so. "He was a fine man."

"He helped me out of big shit once..." Kenny added. "I wonder what it would be like... to win the Prize?"

"The power of a strong quickening... multiplied a million fold." Katana guessed.

"I don't think my body would be able to endure it."

"Why?" Kyra queried.

"Every time I receive a quickening, my skin peels. Scars appear across my body. I feel like I'm about to be vaporised to death. But I still take heads... survival." Kenny sighed.

"And tell me, Kenny." Katana downed the coffee, clearing his throat. "Have you ever found another one like you?"

"Yeah..." Kenny's hands suddenly shivered. "It was in 1700. The new century celebrations in London. A huge party was going on in the streets when suddenly I felt someone tugging at my sleeve. I turned." His voice went harder. "It was a girl, no older than ten. I was going to send her away when she simply said it resolvedly: Let's find a spot and do it." Kenny laid his head distressedly over his arms, leaning on the table.

"You won the jackpot..." Katana blurted out, being struck down by Kyra's eyes of steel.

"I wish I had. She had pretty blonde curls. But she drew out a butcher knife from under a nice yellow dress, like the ones dolls wear. I produced my sword. Her attack was reckless, too easy to avoid. She even tripped on her shoelaces as she went past me. I stared at her wimpy image with pain. She stood up, angry by my way of looking at her. This time, she hit me in the shoulder but didn't harm me. She went again and I parried her blow with as much as a flick. Then something..." his voice cracked and his eyes moistened. "Something possessed me and... and... I lashed at her head and..." Kenny hid his face in his arms, letting pain out.

"Which was her name?" Kyra asked softly, stroking his hair.

"Angela Jones. She was only sixteen." Kenny cried.

"You did what you must." Katana said encouragingly.

"She was young. I did not have to..."

"Some are liars, some are lepers, some are lovers. The meaning of life is learning what we really are. We are immortals. We fight each other in a life or death struggle to keep our heads and obtain quickenings. She knew that."

"So do I, but I still..." Kenny used his arms to clean his tears.

"What happened is that it was different." Kyra held Kenny against her chest. "You had always taken heads by surprise. You knew that the other would easily behead you if you stood mano a mano. However, what happened with Angela was that..." she paused to breathe heavily and measure her words "... for the first time you had the upper hand. You had the chance to be merciful..."

"But I wasn't." Kenny uttered, his voice regaining strength.

"Power is like a lion in a zoo. Imagine you work in a zoo and deal with a lion named..." Katana eyed up, looking for a proper name.

"Leo." Kyra suggested.

"Leo then. It's your job. Your family depends on that money and you know it. If you feed Leo, he will stay in his cage. If you take care of his health, he will stay in his cage. Keep the lion in his cage, free from hunger, free from pain. In control. Now, what if you don't?"

"Leo goes mad and wants out." Kenny whispered, not figuring where all this dumb metaphor was leading.

"Exactly. Power must be controlled by you. Like the lion. If you don't commit anything within you to control it, you will be controlled by it." Katana breathed out heavily, spreading his arms, and rose from his seat. "Well, I feel like sleeping. See you tomorrow."

"I have to maintain the guard." Kyra muttered.

"I'll be off to sleep too." Kenny grunted.

Kyra returned to her seat. Katana delivered a goodnight kiss on her cheek and returned to his sleeping place. To his surprise, Kenny chose his legs to use as a mattress rather than Kell's. He realised he was fond of that man-boy. However, he also feared for what might happen when the time to retaliate against the Watchers come, whether the kid would be able to present battle, or if panic and fear would consume him.

_AUTHOR'S' NOTE: I took lines from "Power" by Tears For Fears, featured in the album "Elemental", and from "Astral Body" by Alphaville (b-side for all I know.)_


	10. Chapter 10

**Chapter X: Romeo & Juliet **

Rain fell down lightly over the cold streets. A malfunctioning headlight twitched on and off, making darkness and light alternate in its random flaw. From the second floor of the large house she had inherited from her parents, Colby Clarke peered through her window, concealing everything but her eyes from the outside view behind khaki curtains. She regarded the headlight, now going off. Her eyes moved to the sidewalk, covered in darkness. Her four-year-old trusty cell phone rang. She removed it off her rear pocket and answered, always fixed upon the dark. Then light came down so bright and her heart jumped as she replied:

"Yes?"

In the street, inside a telephone cab, someone was staring at her, someone whose face was unseen, someone bulky who wore dark clothes and a hat. Under any other circumstances, she would have found him scary. But she knew him. However, under any other circumstances, she would have been glad to see him.

"May I...?" was the dim reply.

She rushed downstairs and opened the door. A bald red-haired man, holding a hat in his hands, extended his arms with a wry grin and she threw herself into them. She delivered a kiss on his lips. He broke and walked in, closing her the door.

"I never thought..." she spoke cracked.

"Me neither. Not with them around." The man replied.

"Carlos... how long has it been?" she sunk in her sofa as he stared from the wall next to the door.

"Four years... I..." he took off his wet black raincoat "You know I couldn't stay." The reply was charged with sincerity filled with pain.

"Yes... but now, why did you return now?"

"I have to. The time has come." He said absently.

"Time? The... Gathering?" she let her head fall till it met her chest. Then it rose again. "I haven't seen any report."

"And what were you expecting? An announcement?" His answer was hard, more out of tiredness than out of causticity. "All thanks to your organisation!"

"Carlos..." she stood up and approached him slowly, measuring him and his reactions. "It's different here. The major appointed a group to..."

"I heard!" he sounded angry. "The Immortal Prevention Squad. As though that would make the watchers remain at bay. After four thousand years of secrecy, what makes you think they're unable to continue like that?"

She wanted to let her arms embrace him to make up for the lost time. She had missed him terribly. Four years in which she had shied away from social life, two years in which she had dug her nose in work, two years in which her bed - and herself - had been stone cold. But he was rejecting her. She could see it with those green eyes everyone admired of her. Not directly at least, but she could sense it. Only one question had to be asked then.

"Why did you came here?" the surprise at the detachment of her voice was much to her. He frowned and shook his head.

"I need information."

So that was all? Two years without a word, and he called in for data. But again, men had used her through most of her life. Her foster dad, a couple of boyfriends eager for a quickie, the Watcher teacher she had bribed with her body to alter her mark - something that did not happen. She was used to it.

"On what... Silas?"

He paled at the mention of his true name. For that woman was the only one whom had always addressed him using his alias since the disease had spread. For her, Carlos Guerra, born in Uruguay in the early seventies according to his passport, was his name. Not Silas, the Horseman, the butcher, War itself.

"Kronos." She blinked at the mention of the name repeatedly. "He's here too."

"I know. It's on the news everywhere."

"I have to stop him." He sounded like a caveman.

"You should have stopped him before!"

He looked away as an injured beast. "There's too much I should have done. These four years have been enlightening for me. But that's spilt milk. Now I need to know how many are left."

"There's no way of knowing." She knuckled her head to wipe away the headache that was nagging her. "According to tonight's report, there are twenty immortals whose status is either alive or unknown."

"How many are alive?"

"Connor MacLeod, Jacob Kell, Kenneth, Gilgamesh, and Vrej Ratavoussian." She recited by heart, as all Watchers were able to lately.

"There's still hope then." Silas sighed. "I must leave."

"Where will you go?"

"It's best if you don't know."

"Carlos--" she silenced as tears trickled down her cheeks. He drew in and hugged her. He hated to leave but staying could endanger her. He pushed her away kindly and grinned as he opened the door and walked out. She saw him walk into a battered Ford Falcon and drive away, waving as he left down the street.

She returned inside, locking the door. She rubbed her head, trying to order her thoughts, and realised she had sweated like hell throughout the chatter. A shower was due, and toward the bathroom she went.

-----

Twenty minutes later, wearing only a light white nightdress, Colby carried her five-inch-tall thirty-six-year-old slightly overweighed body to the bed. The heating device enabled her to sleep without covering with blankets. It felt like summer inside there. It made her feel warm and the warmth, together with the reunion with the man she loved and craved for, made her desire fly to the seventh heaven.

Her hand rested on her head and rubbed gently. It stroked down through her neck to her breasts, then the lights went on as her hand followed the one-second-ago command from her brain and squeezed. She rose to find an audience of four men, all dressed in brown outfits, all holding automatic guns packed with silencers in their hands, leering at her. She wanted to cover herself, but fear had numbed her. She was a frozen statue barely dressed, her long black hair wet and falling down, an invitation to any man with blood in his veins.

"Miss Clarke." The leader spoke. Colby's fingers twitched upon the recognition of Stefano Zanetti. "Your treason shall not be overlooked." He clasped his fingers and two of the men approached her. She jerked her arms at them to defend, but as one clutched her arms, the other ripped off her dress, leaving her completely naked.

"Oooh, nice." The man that was still next to Zanetti giggled.

"She's possessed by the Devil." Zanetti uttered. "She must pay." He took aim and fired an automatic 9-mm. A round of bullets hit Colby in the head and body. Her body hit against the wall to then fall against the bed, the former bloodstained. "It is done."

He retired, and so did his second. The two remaining men stared at the corpse. One touched the rear obscenely. The other shook his head.

"What a waste, man."

_AUTHOR'S NOTE: Guerra is Spanish for War._


	11. Chapter 11

**Chapter XI: Someone from the Past **

Vrej Ratavoussian delivered another failed lash and retreated to catch his breath. He sized up his opponent, this African man that looked so outdated in a dayglow sweater and studded denims, who had dragged him into battle in a park. Too much VH1 for this guy, who reminded him of the clothes shortly successful bands like Wang Chung or The Human League wore. Update, his mind shrieked. This one probably never learned that Michael Hutchence had hung himself, that McCartney was the only Beatle still alive, or even that the King was dead. On second thoughts, Vrej wondered whether his opponent even knew who those people were.

The katana of his opponent carved through his shoulder. Vrej stirred in pure pain as he parried a downward blow aimed at his head. A second attack unbalanced him and made him a vulnerable prey for this man. Indeed, this one must have been buried in a cave to be unaware of the fact that the battles between immortals were not something advisable with the Watchers around. But Vrej himself never listened to advice, otherwise he would have been caught unarmed.

He targeted his axe at the other's groin. He succeeded, but this only meant defeat for him. The axe locked in the other's body, his neck was defenceless against the neat slice that was swinging against his neck, and here he departed to meet Freddie Mercury.

The other immortal ripped off the axe and hurled it against a bush, then regarded with contempt the pitiful head of the bald wiener with those dark glasses. The Quickening began. After four hundred years, he experienced the thrill of proper power, not like those useless henchmen he had beheaded before they could even realise. For the Quickening was the prize after a battle, a trial of the true Prize. And he, Kane, would rule the world with it. As it should have been earlier, had not Nakano locked him in a cave. But first was first: he had to find the Highlander.

------

"I don't believe it!"

Kyra had finally managed to make a home-made antenna - a wire hooked to the TV- tune in a channel. What she had found had stunned her. An immortal getting rid of the cops and the IPS, all by himself. She had summoned the others, including the mortal Paulus. She liked this man named Victor. He was silent, and learned on philosophy and history. Everyone chatted with Victor, even Kell, with whom long theological arguments had taken place. Kyra had found Paulus' knowledge of the past remarkable and thought highly of him. Even though his first name reminded him of another one she had been forced to share a bed with, one whose name gave her the creeps even to mention, dead as that immortal was.

"Who's that one?" Kell asked, idly observing the destructive behaviour, a mug of coffee in his hands.

"That's Kronos." Kenny replied. "Quite a fellow."

"Interesting." Jacob silenced. His eyes remained on the screen, seeing how Kronos rode away. The image blurred and died. But he was not paying heed to it anymore. His eyes had risen to the ceiling, sensing something he had not ever sensed, yet he could recognise perfectly. So could the others.

"Damn!" Connor commented.

"Who would have done it?" Kyra wondered.

"Only someone who doesn't know... or doesn't care." Kell smirked.

"Look, the image is returning." Kenny commented. He pushed a button of the ancient TV - thirty years old, quite a lot for such devices - and a broadcast appeared. The face of a man with dark and long hair, with stubs on his face, framed on the upper right of the screen, gave him the strange knowledge of which the announcement would be.

"The IPS has made an important elimination tonight. An immortal whose name was revealed as Gilbert James was spotted and terminated in Central Park. The Commander of the IPS, Eric Garfield, refused to make any comment..."

"Garfield's in charge?" Connor cracked.

"You know him?" Kell queried curtly.

"Second-rate bad cop. Nothing to worry of."

"Really?" Kell glanced at Kenny. "That's not what we saw."

"What do you mean?" Kyra asked.

"He was rather efficient when it came to shooting down that Irish chap in the bus station. I'd be worried." Kenny explained.

"MacLeod doesn't worry easily. He's been through worse." Katana spoke, a cup of tea in his hands.

"Worse than this?" Victor Paulus wondered what could be worse.

"Yes. Me."

The joke had its effect and everybody loosened up in a wild crack of laughter. Even Jacob Kell joined in his way, grinning while the others guffawed. Katana joined them, though inside he could feel a rising tide of concern growing.

-----

"It was quite a work, honey."

Eric Garfield grinned curtly as his wife Selma as she served some more soup on his dish and on the one of Stella, their twelve-year-old daughter. As the kid ate reluctantly dinner, he fiddled with the spoon, making it turn inside the soup.

"Dad?"

"What, sweetie?"

"What happens?" Garfield stared into his daughter's blue eyes. "You did a good job."

Had he done so? Truth was different from what the news claimed. The IPS had been there, but to clean up the mess. The Watchers had handled this without authorisation. In other states, they were allowed to capture immortals and bring them before a judge. Here, they had to remain at a side and let the IPS get rid of immortals.

So when he and his team arrived at Central Park and found the body of that immortal already headless, it was no wonder that the situation had gone way out of control. He had even been provided a name which he knew was fictitious. Gilbert James... an adaptation of the true name of that immortal, the legendary Gilgamesh.

"Honey?" Selma called from the living room. "John's on the phone."

He numbly stood up, wondering when the phone had rang one, two, maybe three times as usually before she checked the machine which ID'd the caller and picked up the tube.

"Garfield."

"Eric." Stern's voice sounded unnerved. Odd coming from him.

"What is it, John?"

"Got some good news on the greenhouse plans."

OK, Johnny surely thought the phones were bugged, so he was talking in some weird code fashion. The greenhouse was a great reference, for everybody knew they were going to start one when and if they retired. However, they had ceased planning for it when the immortal frenzy began.

"Really? What is it?" he asked, feigning excitement.

"I found a seller. Has a big deposit near the port." Stern now sounded as usual, stiff and calm.

"Great! Wanna go there now?"

"I was going to ask you that." _Quit the farce, John. You're talking too nicely and it freaks me out_, Garfield thought.

"I'm at the phone booth by your door. Come down."

"Right away."

Garfield hung up, put on his holstered gun and over it a coat, then kissed the girls and left his apartment. Stern had surely found a place where a resistance cell had surely formed. A task nothing easy, but which would not be even half as complicated as convincing the immortals of their good intentions. On his way down, he realised he had not answered Stella's query. 

-----

"Sir."

Stefano Zanetti eyed at the guard standing before him, stiff as a stone. He rose from his comfortable seat and glanced at the lovely view of the Brooklyn Bridge before addressing the man.

"What is it?" he asked sharply.

"The two officers are joining."

Zanetti had heard disturbing news regarding two members of the Immortal Prevention Squad being too concerned about the corpses. Neither had seemed pleased when Liam O'Rourke went down. And both were reported to have stayed for a while in the abandoned building where Amy Thomas died aiding Connor MacLeod, their men waiting in the squad van. Never a reckless man, Zanetti had assigned them a twenty-four-hour vigilance - like the old times - on them.

"Good. Prepare a team. There might be immortals and they must all die."

It could be nothing perhaps. Just two cops joining for a beer. But he had to make certain. He could never be too careful.

_AUTHOR'S NOTE: Vrej Ratavoussian is the immortal that beheaded Danny Cimoli. He never appeared or was mentioned in either Series or films. The only "source" I had was the chaín fic "Eternity of Darkness" where one of the bright minds involved therein (memory fails...) made him an Elvis impersonator. So I made him a music buff._


	12. Chapter 12

**Chapter XII: Unwanted Guests**

Quite a team, Kenny wondered as he marched around the deposit, mounting guard, moving to remain awake. Jacob Kell's retaliation against MacLeod seemed postponed for the time being, but like Connor had said it, Kell was capable of anything. Connor MacLeod was another one of a kind. He did not speak much, but whenever he did, it was something concerning the Watchers. The old man Paulus, who slept in the warmth of his own apartment away from there, was a queer fellow who regarded Kenny as a boy, lecturing him often. Katana bore a fascination for Kyra. Well, Kenny thought, who could blame him?

He heard an inaudible sound outside and then the doorknob being tried. He rushed to Katana and shook his shoulder. He moved to Kyra and patted her waist. Both rose instantly and seized their swords. The sound of the blades woke Jacob Kell up. Amid the almost total darkness, Katana waved at them to spread. Using his fingers, he assigned Kyra behind the door, and Kell against the wall left to the entrance.

The door opened no sooner than Kyra crawled behind it. A lantern light pierced the obscurity, then another. Two shapes walked in, the lights in their left, 9-mm in the right. They treaded inside. Something was whispered between them. They began to spread. Then the immortals fell on them.

Kyra crept up on the smaller one, gripping his neck fiercely until the man nearly choked. In the meantime, Kell surreptitiously approached the other and delivered a kick in his ankle. The man fell and Jacob drew out his blade to finish him. He swung downwards and the blade halted near the captive's neck, saved by Katana's broadsword.

"Lights on, kiddo." He commanded Kenny, being promptly obeyed. "We won't kill them, Kell. Yet."

Jacob smirked as he retreated. The man slowly regained his feet, being aimed by Katana's sword. He dropped his gun and raised his hands. Nearby, his friend was being pushed up and disarmed.

"What brought the wind?" Katana asked.

"Two IPS for dinner." Kell joked.

"Well, well... look who's come for dinner." Connor MacLeod, till then peacefully sleeping, spoke between yawns. "Garfield... and you are?."

"John Stern. We met twenty years ago, Russell Nash." Stern, his right arm locked at his back by Kyra, grunted as he tried to move his plastered left.

"May I ask what brings you to... our humble abode?" Connor stood between the two of them, his hands parked behind at his waist, a cynical look in his eyes.

"We want... to help." Kyra was holding him by the throat, so Stern had problems to breathe.

"Yeah, right." Kenny yelled. "Like you helped that Irish guy."

"I was doing my job."

"I say we open their throats." Kell stood by Garfield, leering straight into his face.

"Abbot Dolore." Garfield saluted him not seriously. "You scare the shit out of me."

"Let them go." Connor ordered. Kyra obeyed and upon that, so did Katana. Stern massaged his throat while Garfield sighed relieved. "Now speak!"

"We are offering our help to bring the Watchers down. Nothing more, nothing less." Garfield spoke plainly, regarding each and every of the immortals there. "I'm talking to you, Nash... MacLeod. Aren't you listening?"

Indeed, Connor had paid no heed to the cop. Something else had drawn his attention. He treaded slowly towards the door and placed a hand on it. He glanced back and put the back of his hands together and then opened his arms. The immortals scattered, each wielding a sword. Garfield and Stern picked up their guns.

"We have visits." Connor announced.

-----

"Ready at your command, sir."

Rex Hunter, second of Stefano Zanetti and leader of the team which would assault the refuge of the immortals, informed his superior. Zanetti nodded with his hands clenched against his nose. There were twenty-four men. Three groups of six spear-carriers each to enter through the only door. Four spidermen to fly in through the windows, and two snipers, one on each side, to cover any eventuality.

"Go." Zanetti barked.

Hunter got off the black van and drew out his index and middle finger, jerking his arm forward. He then returned and half-kneeled to check the turnout of the operation by the PC. The sissing of a smoke bomb was heard, then a window crashing. It had begun.

-----

"Step back!"

Having noticed the white smoke spreading, Connor commanded as he moved to the centre of the deposit. Kyra and Katana were on his right, Kell and Kenny on his left. Garfield and Stern had crawled where he was now standing, both men aiming their weapons at the door. The Highlander regarded them briefly before he heard the door being thrown down.

Just then four crashes were heard and four men, dressed all like Spec Ops, descended to the floor from the window, hanging from ropes. Too bad for them. Kell terminated the two on his side before they could even load their submachine guns. Kyra and Katana were not as swift, yet as effective. Connor wielded his katana, noticing the trace of a shadow appearing through the fog.

The gun at his right shouted and the first shadow dove definitely to the floor. The one at his left fired twice, sending one to the underworld and the other to the floor with a major wound in his throat. The Highlander stormed towards a fourth one. A bullet pierced his stomach, which hindered his motion. He tripped and fell.

A brown flash ran past him. White smoke made his eyes teary as he heard a whine nearby. He stumbled to his feet and found Jacob Kell stiffly maiming the hand of a man. Only that suddenly it was not Kell anymore. It was Kell's body with a horrid red ball above the shoulders, like a crushed tomato, as a bullet exited the would-be head, splattering blood all around.

Bewilderment possessed him. He gazed astounded at Kell's body plunging to the ground, hitting with a dull thud the bloodstained ground. His eyes levelled to find another shooter aiming his weapon at him and the next thing he felt was a round of bullets entering his body. Connor fell, staring at the rooftop. He grasped the notion of a blonde figure gracefully advancing towards him. Was it an angel? As it passed by him, he made out a stainless blade and realised it was only Kyra. God, he was passing out.

-----

"Help here!"

Katana barked approaching Connor's body. The Highlander had been rather foolish in attacking the armed men, superior in number to him, head-on. But that had always been a feature to MacLeod. He had dared opposing him, and failed. He had also dared opposing the Kurgan, and had succeeded. This time, luck had not played with him, so here he was to level matters.

He grabbed the shoulders of the now dead Highlander and began to pull. MacLeod was not that heavy, but heavy enough to delay him for a while. He felt a second pair of hands dragging and turned. It was the smallest of those officers, the one with one able hand. Stern, he remembered, whose help, if little, came very much in handy. The other one, Garfield, was covering them firing at the men that were intruding in, hitting at least one.

-----

Kyra lashed at a gunman and struck in his heart. The man fell as she ducked in time to avoid a knife, and rose with an uppercut that could have rivalled with the highlights of Mike Tyson's repertoire in the boxer's golden days. The gunman fell on his back. She heard bullets coming from the inside and glanced at the image. So those two were telling the truth. She smiled as she roared back into battle.

Kenny grabbed his minute sword and rushed towards the battle. With the two Highlanders down, and Katana busy saving MacLeod's rear, Kyra was alone against at least seven gunmen, her only aide being the gunshots of the cop. He appeared by surprise and stabbed a hitman on the side. Then came a struggle to remove the sword from the watcher's body. He finally withdrew it and felt a lacerating pain piercing through him, and then something cold, and at the same time hot, tripping down his skin.

-----

Katana left Connor under the cops' care and wielding his broadsword, struck at the invaders. Kyra had dispatched four of them already, but her left arm was dead. Kenny had gone to help her but only could hit one before falling. Backed by Garfield and Stern, who were alternating shots to save the bullets, Katana was able to eliminate one and wound another that would not make it to dawn.

Something dim and red drew his attention and the next thing he knew was his left eye was expanding and exploding in a mass of pain. He fell to his knees, covering the erupting blood that gushed out abundantly.

"There are snipers, dammit!" he shrieked.

Kyra stood by her friend, shielding him from the only two gunmen that remained. One was attacking her, while the other soon went down under the two mortals' fire. The former had a large machete in her hands. She smirked with satisfaction. Her skills had gone rusty. She would love this.

The man chopped at her head. She dodged him and connected her knee fiercely with his stomach; then pushed him back and noticed a red light posing on her chest. She leapt aside as a bullet pierced the ground. Her opponent was attacking again. She knelt, and made a twist in her place, with her leg extended forward so as to hook the watcher's leg, who fell, hitting hard his head against the floor, going unconscious.

The backup fire stopped. The cops slowly went to their feet. Connor was regaining conscience. Kell's face was rebuilding. Kenny was already at his feet with a sense of bewilderment. Katana's wound had healed, though his eye would never work again. The mortals, Connor and Kenny were in silent tension, believing to be in the aftermath, staring at Kyra with disbelief as she stood in guard, waiting for the next shot.

A bullet cracked a glass that had remained in the window and nestled in Kyra's knee. She let out a deafening squawk and fell wounded, as a cry erupted somewhere. Katana dove to cover his goddess as a new shower of bullets fell over them, killing them and the knocked-down watcher. They would survive, he wouldn't. Not that Katana would miss him.

-----

Kenny awoke in time to see Kyra fall. He shrieked in despair, then saw a submachine gun nearby and went for it. It was tarnished with blood but it would work. There was a string of bullets clung to the corpse's body, which ended inside the gun. He remembered seeing Sylvester Stallone handling one of those in Rambo. How difficult could it be?

He aimed at the window and pulled the trigger. A bullet went out as the recoil sent him to the floor. Christ, he did not expect that. He took it again, this time leaning against the wall to steady his shot. He fired and his shoulder burnt in pain as it dislodged against the wall. But the bullet had gone clean all the way to where the dim red point was, somewhere in the opposite rooftop. A cry followed, then the light was briefly covered by something massive before appearing again, and a hard noise, like something - or someone, Kenny guessed - falling, echoed in the cold night. A bullet coming from above cracked his skull. He fell on his knees and nose-dived to the floor.

-----

Garfield fired at the man in the window who had finished the blond boy and hit. The sniper seemed to dangle in his place before plummeting loudly to the ground outside. A war shriek was heard from the door. More watchers. He began to fire. John was not around. Where in hell was his buddy?

-----

John Stern had noticed there would be more watchers coming in and crept to the recently fallen corpse of the sniper, from where he retrieved a machinegun ready to function. It was a beauty fully loaded. He took aim carefully, so as not to hit the lovely immortal couple that had fallen under the other sniper's fire, using his plastered hand as a base for the muzzle and placing his right-hand index finger on the trigger. He smirked as he squeezed.

A deafening rattle of bullets filled the place as the coming-in watchers froze in the air upon being hit and fell. Stern grinned as he noticed how the bullets hit their targets in heads, chests, stomachs, and other fatal locations. The device was a lovely baby which intended to tremble in his hands, but was contained by his firm grip.

He only loosened his squeeze when they were all gone to the afterlife. He left the weapon and stood up as if a tiny breeze had just passed. He glanced at his pal Eric, who scrambled up, his legs a little shaky though. Garfield grinned at him approvingly.

"Heh heh." They turned to face Connor MacLeod, who was shaking off the dust from his clothes, bearing an undisguised expression of approval. "Welcome aboard, fellas."


	13. Chapter 13

**Chapter XIII: One Little Ancient Problem**

Darkness. Cold, silent, complete darkness. Connor MacLeod thought how much time had passed since he had decided to enter the Sanctuary, the place where the Watchers provided a place of rest for immortals who abhorred the bloodshed their lives entailed. On occasions, on a scheduled period of time that seemed unfathomable given his loss of the sense of time, someone would administer them more drugs to keep then in their continuum of rest. However, this quickening was different. Softer, calmer, older than the usual drug-administrator yet younger, way too younger than the other immortals that dwelt there.

His eyes suddenly faced the harsh glimmer of a lantern. Connor blinked repeatedly and squinted at the image of a grey-haired man with a four-day beard who was loosening his grips.

"What... what...?" he mumbled.

"Tell you later, MacLeod. I gotta get you outta here!" was the coarse reply.

Connor found himself on the back of this man, who was dragging him as one drags a friend who has drunk too much and cannot walk properly. His eyes twitched in pain, which became immeasurable when suddenly they confronted daylight.

"Damn!" Connor cursed.

"Come on. They will be here any second now."

They hobbled to a Suzuki Vitara. Connor was put in the rear seat. All dazzled for him.

"What is it?"

"Don't worry, Highlander. I need to get the others out."

The man spoke calmly as he moved away. Connor noticed that he leant on a cane. Suddenly, a female appeared, crying for Connor to leave. The closer she moved, the harsher light became. Then the old man would be seized by a group of men and promptly shot there, as she would...

-----

Inside a bar in the centre of New York, Kronos calmly sipped a Guinness as he read a newspaper two days old. It mentioned something about an unidentified immortal killing a pauper and a pedestrian and slaying a bunch of law enforcement officers. What was the purpose of letting others live to spread his message, if they did not spread their message?

But soon it would not matter anymore. The Gathering was here and now. The head of all the immortals left would fall to his feet and the Prize would be his. Then the world would know him, obey him, and fear him, para siempre.

His eyes departed from the letters when he sensed a presence nearby. It was peculiar how the whole feeling business - that weird tinkle in the head that announced there was another immortal around - had changed since the amount of immortals had lessened. He could sense one within a mile, and it borderlined pain when one was very near. Like now.

A hulk abruptly sat down, so abruptly Kronos did not recognise him at first. The giant scowled at him under a hat, wearing a large raincoat, and a disgusted smirk that could not be disguised. Kronos grinned mockingly.

"Hello, brother," he uttered.

"Hello, Kronos," was the stiff reply

"Do you want a beer? Or maybe something stronger?" Kronos knew his brother had a fancy for alcoholic drinks, a fancy that could only be surpassed by his desire for women, and for ravaging and destruction.

"I left it." The sharp reply stunned Kronos.

"So, Silas," he spoke slowly and softly. "Where have you been?"

"Tibet. I've reflected about my actions."

"Oh..." Kronos smiled evilly "And what was your conclusion?"

"You must pay." Silas blurted out sharply. The centuries of brotherhood meant nothing to him now. Not since he had seen the reality: Kronos was the impersonation of evil, an evil he had followed until the Water Disease was spread. It was then when Silas found out that he was not evil: just misled, and without control of his dark desires.

He had gone to Romania in a quest for peace, where he would meet Colby Clarke. From there they would move together to America. A happy couple they were, her with her finesse and him with his primitiveness, until a quirk of fate revealed one a Watcher and the other an immortal. Just when the hunting had began.

He had fled to Tibet for enlightenment. Methos had suggested it once, and Methos had always been the smartest of them. Silas did not feel like a superior being for being in Tibet. He knew he had not reached the state Hindus call nirvana. He was not even close. But he had reached a level enough to know that Kronos had to die.

"Really?" Kronos folded the newspaper and took another sip. "And what about you, brother? What about your actions?" Silas seemed unbalanced by that. "Let me guess. My death will be your atonement. Well, learn: atonement is impossible for us."

"Methos believed in it." Silas gasped.

"Methos' dead!" Kronos barked, drawing attention. He smiled at the onlookers and lowered his voice. "Maybe we should discuss outside. In the old-fashioned way."

"There's an alley round the corner." Silas proposed stiffly. "I'll be there in five minutes."

Kronos stood up, left a ten-dollar bill and left carrying his leather coat. Oh, the thrills of being feared. With the little show he had mounted recently, no one in the bar would dare reporting a guy in a coat, should he be that slayer that had slaughtered a bunch of cops. But Silas also carried a coat. Indeed, only those who dared breaking the mortal rules made it to the Gathering.

He headed into the darkness of the alley and drew out his ancient broadsword. He warmed his muscles and felt the flow of his weapon. He wondered how his brother would be in the battle. Silas now behaved better, spoke better, and seemed smarter than in their last reunion. However, that proved to be an advantage: if Silas had gone civilised, then the vicious battler had subsided as well.

His head felt another pound in his head. So Silas had been unable to wait for five minutes. A shadow drew in the alley, producing what seemed to be a Japanese katana. Odd, Silas was not fond of such weapons. And he seemed thinner now...

-----

Silas had counted three minutes, basing on the clock above the bar. Then he had felt it. A massive power passing by the bar, heading towards the alley. Whoever that immortal was, he or she had headed towards the strongest of them, Kronos. Silas stood up and stormed out, towards the alley, where he could already feel the clatter of swords.

-----

The immortal dodged his blow and parried another. Kane slammed against him, his blade being promptly blocked. He smirked, thrilled of having found a warrior worthy of his stature. For he had fought the bravest. Though he had remained four hundred years dwelling in a cave, and missed the Kurgan.

His opponent lunged forward and sliced his shoulder. Kane returned a blow that made the other's chest bleed lightly. This man was good, unlike that pitiful Russian he had encountered a few days ago. He had learnt a lot from that louse though. Immortals were prey from humans. Secrecy was advised. Kane did not care about it at all. He would take all their heads, and the world would bear witness to his crowning as the King of the Universe. In the meantime, he got himself better clothes.

"Who are you?" the other growled.

"I am Kane." He hissed.

"Kane?" his opponent's laughter offended him. Kane delivered a blow that hit the wall behind his target. The other had sneaked under and was taking distance. "Kane disappeared in the sixteenth century."

"And now I'm back!" Kane bellowed. "And I've to make up for the lost time."

A new feeling reached their heads. It was surely the other immortal Kane had sensed. A hulkish figure treaded inside the alley, wielding a massive axe. He stood by Kronos, a sudden complicity in his face.

"We ride, brother?" The giant asked. Kronos smirked viciously at Silas' suggestion.

"We ride!"

Silas slammed his axe against Kane's neck. Kane dodged and blocked Kronos' sword, diverting it enough to have a clearance. He retreated.

"Two against one. I don't think so." Kane sliced at the air and suddenly a shape, exactly like him, appeared before him. Kronos and Silas stared bewildered. "Bring it, my friends."

Kronos attacked while Silas remained frozen. Kane #1 blocked his blow while Kane #2 stabbed him in the side. Kronos let out an animal cry as he knelt, his blood kissing the ground. Silas reacted and swung his axe towards #2. But #1 stood in his way so fast he could not defend himself when the large blade of Kane's katana ran through his body and erupted through his back.

Both Kanes guffawed as they mirrored each other's movements, lifting up their swords over the other's necks.

"There can be only one." They chanted before slicing off the heads of the surviving members of the Four Horsemen of Apocalypse.

Kyra awoke with a start, so drenched in sweat her pinkish nipples were visible through her white sleeping tee shirt. Kenny woke up next, sweaty as well and feeling pain in his head. Katana followed, his face a statue, his left socket patched with a torn piece of cloth from Kyra's shirt, his heart itched of concern. Jacob Kell was next. He knelt and began to prey.

Connor had already awoken, following the dream of his release from the Sanctuary. The dream had not been accurate. Amy had not been there, the old man had not been caught. He had simply put Connor in the car and the car had driven away and left him in a random spot, clothes and his katana with him. The implications of the dream had been uncertain... till now. He held his head fatefully, sensing the two quickenings joining a third one which was more powerful.

Following the Watchers' visit, the immortals owed themselves a night of sleep. The two cops had phoned their families and ordered them out of New York City, and now, despite having undergone the same as the immortals, the former IPS were mounting guard as they worriedly eyed the reactions of the others.

"Oh my GOD!" Kyra cried.

"We're doomed! We're doomed!" Kenny burst into tears, being immediately held by the Spartan, who embraced him tightly against her chest.

"It was Kronos..." Connor hissed "... and Silas too."

"What happened?" Stern asked gloomily. Neither dared reply, save Kell.

"The beginning of the end."


	14. Chapter 14

**Chapter XIV: Weakness **

"Connor MacLeod, the Highlander. He is one of the finest. Let's not forget he defeated the Kurgan."

In a darkened room, a retroprojector displayed a picture of Connor. A man handling the slideshow clicked and the picture changed.

"Katana. Born in Zeist, Holland, 600 years ago. He was a general and a dictator. Stiff and precise, though now he has only one eye to look at things."

Another click, another change, while a chuckle was dimly heard.

"Kyra. She's pretty but don't let that fool you. She's a Spartan warrior... and she is two millennia old. Very dangerous indeed. She mentored Katana... and he worships her as some sort of goddess. Reasons unknown."

Change again.

"Kenneth. This little punk has deceived other immortals by playing the newborn immortal for 800 years. He's not physically dangerous but is very smart."

One more change.

"Jacob Kell, another Highlander. He was a priest. The records show he has a grudge against MacLeod. He's killed his beloved women for the last two hundred years. He's probably the ruthless of them all."

The last click of the session. The pictures of Garfield and Stern appeared.

"Eric Garfield. 48 years old. Commander of the IPS, gone renegade to help the immortals. Married with a daughter. The other is John Stern, 47 years old, single, Garfield's second, another renegade."

The session ended and the lights went on. The most prominent watchers were sitting around a table, led by Stefano Zanetti, seconded by Goran Milosevic and Roberto Flores. The slideshow man, Roy something, turned off the retroprojector and sat down.

"Thanks, Roy. As you can see, these are the immortals we're up against, for what we could gather from the visit we made to their shelter." Zanetti spoke proudly, as if they had achieved a stunning victory and not a defeat.

"But what do we do about them?" someone asked.

"They only have themselves, so there's no weak point to exploit. But the cops have more... and we've already taken care of that."

"We kidnapped the daughter and wife?" Flores questioned, evidently not liking the implications of that.

"We did and that will bring them all down."

"But they're mortals. Like us! We'd agreed not to touch them." Milosevic joined.

"Are you questioning my authority, Goran?" Zanetti hissed coldly.

Milosevic glowered at him, stood up and left the room, mouthing profanities in Bosnian. Flores remained in his seat yet did not look at Zanetti, repenting now having given his vote for Joe Dawson's execution. Joe had been right. Zanetti was insane, and now there was nothing he could do to stop him.

-----

The immortals, Paulus, Garfield and Stern were sitting around a table too, sipping coffee and commenting the attack they had repelled. Neither was in a cheered mood. Faces were serious and concerned. Even Katana found it difficult to break the ice with a joke. The matter of the double quickening someone had absorbed was taboo for the time being.

"I should have been steadier rather than rushing into battle." Connor scolded himself. "Jacob saved me."

"I only delayed your death, Connor." Kell replied coldly.

"The kid was great with the machinegun," Garfield commented.

"Indeed he was." Connor granted. "But he was magnificent!"

Stern smirked, sipped some coffee, mouthed a smoke, and looked down. Kyra regarded him for a second before focusing on Kenny. The little man was at the same time eyeing Katana, who had gone rather moody since the loss of his eye. She did likewise. Katana. Not only he had lost half his sight, he had shielded her from the bullets from the sniper. Solely thinking about it made her heart sink in distress, and question her feelings as well.

"Will they return?" Paulus wondered.

Garfield sipped and shook his head before addressing the elder man - actually, one of the youngest there. He and John had found him agreeable, though they found themselves unable to sustain a conversation with him. Paulus was a learned man. So were the immortals. John and him were well educated, but they were ciphers compared to the others. Which was the point of knowing a bit about Machiavelli when Paulus had read his entire work, Katana had come across him once or twice, Kyra had slept with him, and Kenny had been under his wing?

"I doubt it. It was quite a team. But they will try something else."

"They might go for our Achilles' heel." Katana blurted out.

"Connor doesn't have one... I rid him of all them." Kell grinned viciously after kicking into the goal the ball Katana had left bouncing with the keeper too far to get it. However, Connor did not react to that.

"Shit!" Stern cursed. "Damn, it's so damn obvious." He stood up holding his head in repentance.

"What?" Connor queried.

"You don't have a heel. But Eric does."

"Stella and Selma..." Garfield seemed absent-minded, being silent and thoughtful for a second. "Christ!"

He stormed outside and the wheels of a car screeching away were clearly heard.

-----

Kyra went to a small, damp room that was empty. She sat down on the floor and her face stretched as she let all her suppressed emotions out. Tears streamed down her pale cheeks as she yanked her own blonde hair, upping her knees to hide in them. The door was opened and Katana entered, finding himself shocked by the picture.

"Kyra... what happens?" he said gently as he sat down by her.

"It's..." she wiped the tears off her face. "It's all this. We are close to death like never before..."

"Shh." He comforted her. "Don't worry. The choice is ours: we let them win or we stand up in battle."

"Don't you ever leave the war chat away?" Kyra giggled a bit as she cleansed a tear.

"It's part of me, my goddess."

"Why!" she moaned. "Why you keep calling me your goddess!"

"Because if all the world was smiling, I would only ever want to see your frown." he shied away for an instant. "You've always saved me, Kyra." Katana spoke sincerely. "When I was in that pile of rotten flesh. When I thought war was the only way. When I lost my eye..."   
Again, emotion overwhelmed her. She struggled against it.

"What would you do, Katana?"

"Sorry?"

"What would you do if there was no tomorrow?" she asked, her words interrupted here and there by the gasps that followed the unshed tears. "Where would you go if you knew this was your last day on Earth?"

Katana looked away for a couple of seconds and returned his sight to her, head-on, straight into her eyes. He did not speak though. Not for another minute at least.

"I'd be right here with you and I'd kiss you goodbye." He whispered without a hint of embarrassment.

She smiled and broke into tiny laughter. He joined her and both cracked for a while. Slowly, they sobered and stared at each other.

"Then why don't you do it?" Kyra defied.

Katana leaned in and his lips touched hers. They went in and out of touch for a few seconds before her tongue slid inside his mouth. He pushed her kindly to the floor and stroked her hair. Her hands reached out for his coat and began to unzip it, in what was the beginning of another sexual relation, like many in their years together, between Kyra and Katana, only this time, she felt there was more than sex now. Internally, both wondered if they would have the chance to confess feelings to the other before the war brushed them away from the living.

_AUTHOR'S NOTE:I took lines from Duran Duran's "Last day on earth" from the album "Pop Trash", and one line from Darren Hayes' "So beautiful", included in the Savage Garden "Best Of" album. And... the scene in the empty room originally didn't involve Katana. It involved Kenny. To my own surprise, it ended up being a disturbingly perverted piece of writing. Obviously, the original version of "The Empty Room" didn't make it here._


	15. Chapter 15

**Chapter XV: Into the Wolf's Lair **

"They have them at their headquarters... sons of bitches!"

Garfield clenched his fists to control his anger. He had arrived home and found a note with the location where he would be able to find his family... and what the Watchers wanted in exchange. Now he was back at the shelter, arguing about it.

"We can't do that." Kenny grunted.

"They are innocent people, kiddo." Kell replied stiffly.

"They mean nothing to me, Kell. So why should we get involved?"

"Why did they get involved, Kenneth?" Katana barked, scolding the man-boy he was so fond of. "For you it's too easy to say 'it's not my problem' because his wife and daughter mean nothing to you. But they came here to help us when they should have helped them, and don't forget that we're discussing this because they saved all our pretty asses."

Kenny glared at Katana. He eyed around for support. Kyra shot him with a steely look. Kell seemed calm, which usually meant he was not in that mood. The two mortals were too concerned about the hostages to even glance at him. Connor was fooling with some gloves he had found and glimpsed at the boy for a second, which was enough for Kenny to know he was alone in the matter.

"So the question remains: what do we do?" Kell finally spoke, breaking a deafening silence.

"What they want: surrender." Connor muttered, making a glove fit perfectly in his left hand.

"Are you insane, MacLeod?" Kyra questioned.

"It's tactic, Kyra." Katana grinned as he spoke. "We let the enemy think they have the advantage and when they've taken down their guard..." the sentence was unfinished, but everyone understood.

"They'll inspect us." Kell commented.

"That's when we strike." Connor stood up. "So, we agree on going?"

Connor drew out his katana and placed the tip over the table. One by one, Kyra, Katana, Kell and, after some dithering, Kenny joined theirs to his. To that image of union joined the muzzle of two 9 mm. The team was ready to go. He did not have to say that at least one of them would not make it, but it was something they all knew.

-----

The New York headquarters were a seven-floor building, which provided a magnificent view of the Hudson and the Brooklyn Bridge. Three security guards - all Watchers - guarded the entrance to it. The huskiest of them approached Garfield and Stern, who were bringing at gunpoint the pack of immortals that was causing them lots of trouble, all unloaded off a van.  
The other two pushed the eternal demons against the van.

"Where are they?" Garfield, handling an automatic in each hand like an actor of a John Woo film, growled.

The guard picked up a radio transmitter and barked something. The reply was rattled. "Second floor. You don't mind if we inspect them, right?"

"Fuck them for all I care." Garfield feigned disinterest very well.

One of the guards approached Connor. The other went towards Katana. The leader focused on Kyra, who wore a scarf over a raincoat. He made her spread her legs and patted them. She then move to her waist and pushed obscenely against her as he patted her body, intent on her breasts. They were firm and steady... too firm and hard. His hands went under the scarf where he touched something cold. A medallion probably.

"Now!" Connor MacLeod suddenly shrieked.

The guard felt an elbow in his stomach and suddenly pain gushed out of his mouth along with his teeth, as the shadow of something resembling a foot landed nearby. The others underwent similar experiences. Kyra drew out her sword, clung to her between the coat and her shirt, the hilt covered by the scarf, which she now removed. The other immortals produced their own blades and headed inside, into the wolf's lair.

-----

The first floor was clear. They tiptoed through the stairs without problems and reached the second. Katana peered at a large hallway at which end there was a light shining clearly, and two armed thugs stood in guard.

"What's the plan?" Kyra questioned. "If they aim well, only one of us will reach to where they are."

"One of us has to play the bait." Connor suggested.

"I'm the fastest of us all. I will lead." Kell offered, with always a vicious tone in his voice.

"MacLeod and I will back you." Katana assured. "Kyra, you go behind us. You two go behind her and try if possible to bring them down."

"What about me?" Kenny asked shamefully. He felt useless and their faces sympathised with that.

"I... have an idea." Stern suggested.

-----

On they went. Jacob Kell moved swiftly forward and made half the way before the guards even realised. They loaded their small Walthers and began to fire. The first shot hissed past Kell's ear, passed between Connor and Katana, and grazed Kyra's left side of the brow. She staggered a bit but continued going forward as blood tripped down. The second shot hit Katana on the left leg and the general started to limp. The third shot went anywhere. The shooter had been stabbed in his stomach by the time he had pulled the trigger... and the immortals were not yet within reach.

Kenny retired his sword from the guard's body as the other thug fired at the oncoming group. Stern's plan had been perfect. He had gone carefully by the wall a few seconds before Kell struck. So while the guards were distracted by the bigger immortals, the little one got next to one and sent him to say hello to Satan.

The remaining thug hit Kell in the left knee and Connor on the same shoulder. He had a clear shot at Katana, whose sword was closely out of reach. Or so it seemed. The guard glared at how the broadsword suddenly became larger. A second later, he was gasping blood as four inches of steel entered his body.

"Quite a gimmick, general." Kell joked.

"Useful device indeed." Katana replied, making the extended blade retract to its normal size.

"Daddy!" Stella cried at the sight of her father rushing past the immortals. He hugged her and kissed his wife. The watchers had relied on him excessively, leaving only two guards to take care of them. No, they had been smart. He reloaded his gun, knowing he had to be more accurate next time if they wanted to make it through the next time, which would be very soon. Now.

-----

Katana and Connor led the way. Stern and Garfield were at their sides, slightly behind. Kyra and Kell closed the strange circle, with Kenny and the rescued hostages in the centre. They all knew the way out would be crammed with watchers eager to bring them all down. Securing the wife and daughter was their primary objective. Then, they would see how they did.

Their attention sharp, they climbed off the stairs until the entrance. Outside, they could see two pick-up trucks, over and at the sides of which there were armed men. The immortals' van was behind that stumbling block.

"Looks tough." Kell acidly commented.

"It does. Any suggestion?" Katana smirked.

"I don't know." Garfield grunted. "The tactic we intended to use was used against us. They trapped us here."

"We're dead." Selma Garfield sobbed.

"Not yet." Kenny found himself smiling, after having felt a pain in the back of his head. He regarded the other immortals, who looked on the one side concerned about who it might be, and on the other relieved by the possible help that might come in. Though the obvious question was: who was out there?

The answer came minutes later. The watchers' attention was drawn by disturbances on the left of their formation. Someone was taking them down brutally and swiftly. Whoever it was, the cornered group knew this was their best chance. They stormed out of the building aiming at the right, barely shielding their heads with their swords and still protecting the hostages, as a rattle of weapons greeted them. 

Connor stepped forward and received at least a hundred shots. That gave room for the rest to hurry at the side of the watcher formation. MacLeod fell as many watchers did too, under Garfield and Stern's fire and the blades of Kyra, Katana and Kell, who attacked as they escaped a rain of bullets.

In an insane run, they reached the van and got in. The keys slipped off Kyra's hands under the fire coming from behind. She finally started the car and made the engine roar. She glanced worriedly at the others. There were two people missing.

"Where's Stern?"

"John?" Garfield called without reply. Kyra glanced at the little mirror at her door. On the ground, John Stern lay with his chest and left cheek against the floor, a small pool of blood flowing out of his inertly still body.

"He's down..." Kyra sighed sadly.

"Damn!" Garfield shrieked as he punched one of the walls of the van.

"Where's MacLeod?" she queried.

"They shot him." Kenny replied.

"We have to rescue him."

"We have to leave." Kell coarsely added. "He knew what was at stake."

"No..." Kyra bit back tears.

"Kell's right." Katana reassured her. "Leave."

Kyra closed her eyes and a tear slid down her face as he pushed the accelerator and the van drove away, being hit from many sides by the watchers' fire, leaving Connor MacLeod behind.

-----

Kane had already suffered two bullet wounds in his unarmed arm and one in his side. There were too many of these watchers, who fell too easily. But the Highlander was there. He had sensed him entering that building, he and other immortals, and he had gone after him. He could not leave now. He was down, an easy target for his blade.

But this army of pitiful mortals was hurting him. Not much, but hurting him still. If he took the Highlander's head, he might be defenceless against them and they would take his head. He had to think. He had to leave and return some other time. So he turned and started running away, covering his escape with the illusions he had learnt to produce from the sorcerer Nakano's quickening.

A giant blue dragon fell from the skies and swept past the army. The watchers quitted firing and tried to save themselves. That was enough for Kane to disappear. He knew his long-coveted quarry would not be going anywhere. And if he understood how this mortals - predictable as all of them - thought, he knew they would not take the Highlander's head. At least not for the time being.


	16. Chapter 16

**Chapter XVI: Prelude to the End of The Game **

Four days later.

The surroundings of the Watchers headquarters were blocked with bars. An important reunion was taking place. A scenario blocked the entrance of the building. Every Watcher had to be there and indeed they were. At least ten thousand people were there, crammed together, waiting for the big show and enjoying the fireworks that lighted the night of New York.

Stefano Zanetti peeked at the flocks of people there and smirked. His plans to take down immortals had gone well. There were still a few out there, but the large bulk of them was history. However, the issue of MacLeod escaping Sanctuary had been bad for his image. Now it was make-up time.

He grasped a microphone and walked on stage. Cheers and chants welcomed him. He waved like a politician amid a whistle-stop tour, hurriedly and hecticly. He placed the mic near his mouth and took a deep breath before speaking.

"Ladies and gentlemen. This night will be remembered as the day when the Watchers made a stand in the name of humans. Tonight, we will bring down the leader of the squad of demons that have harassed our society since the dawn of time." Zanetti paused and motioned at two men off stage. "Tonight, we will take the head of Connor MacLeod!"

The crowd yelped as if Zanetti was some rock star and not a butcher about to take the head of someone. He felt the vampire Lestat, a secret killer worshipped as a god. Two thugs dragged a hand-cuffed Connor, wearing only a holed bloodstained tee shirt and a pair of trousers and bearing distress and tiredness in his face, next to Zanetti. The watcher leader picked a hook that was hanging off a rope clung to the building and inserted it between the chains of the cuffs. He made a sign and the rope pulled, making Connor hang in the air, his arms stretched painfully too much.

Zanetti grinned, looking with his eyes for the small group of loyal people that had helped him get that far. Neither the Spaniard Pablo de la Guarda, nor the Australian Stanley Jones, even less the ruthless lawyer Camille D'Archund were around. Or probably they were out of his range of view. But they would have come and congratulate him. It was something that disturbed him and to his detriment, it was nothing compared to what was beginning to occur.

-----

A large explosion in the middle of the crowd made a chunk of Watchers die, most of which lost limbs before or after perishing. Then two more bombs imploded, behind the crowd, taking more lives. Panic spread and the people tried to make their own way out, careless of their peers.

From the blockage that was behind the headquarters - oddly unguarded - Katana, now wearing a pirate-like eye patch, smirked as he depressed a button and yet another bomb got rid of more Watchers. The orange mass devoured a few people, making them burn badly before shock and horror, if not the fire itself, made them perish. And if some were lucky enough to escape the fire, the scared crowd would step on them on their way out. He picked a walkie-talkie and pushed a button. "Go!"

He dropped the remote, drew out his sword and jumped over the blockage. Following MacLeod's capture, Katana had sent Garfield and his family away, much to the cop's objections. Then he had taken the plans inside the Highlander's cane and learnt who was who. One by one, the immortals located the three helpers of Zanetti, who were foolishly staying in hotels without custody, and killed them. Now only the big shot remained.

-----

Kyra crept on stage and punched away Zanetti. A thug tried to seize her but she avoided and kicked him off stage. He fell over the crowd, which had suppressed their fear upon the events on the scenario. She released Connor and the Highlander fell exhausted over the floor.

"Kell, free him!" she called out. Kell had walked on from the other side and had already his broadsword ready, leering at Connor. Kyra realised that Katana had made a mistake there: what prevented Jacob from taking MacLeod's head now?

"Jacob Kell..." Connor stammered, squinting through his dirty hair. "It's not over..."

"I know that, fool. Just wanted to make you sweat." Kell slammed against the cuffs, which parted instantly. "This is yours." Kell handed Connor his katana, which had been retrieved from inside the building by Kenny.

"MacLeod!" Zanetti barked, firing two rounds at the Highlanders. Connor received none, Kell only one in his shoulder.

"Shut up, asshole!"

A tiny voice whispered from behind as three gunshots pierced Zanetti's shoulder and throat. The watcher leader turned to see Kenny handling the weapon of one of his men, before falling over the rope with the hook, hanging there without moving. Just then a roar of fire expanded. Connor eyed aghast at how many Watchers were dying due to the exploding bombs. Katana joined the group on stage. Kyra regarded him estranged as the others saw the expanding and rising tides of fire. 

"If you're here... who's handling the bombs?" 

They all sensed the presence again. A brutal power depressing buttons nearby. Katana knew he had had Kenny plant too many bombs. He thought he was being cautious. Instead, he had unleashed a massacre that would harass his conscience for a long time, acts of War or not. He only hoped that time, and Kyra at his side, would help him forget, if they were able to elude their immortal fate. Abruptly, pain struck at his neck--

-----

"Katana!" Kyra cried deafeningly as he saw how the head of the man she now realised loved fell all of a sudden. Behind him, Zanetti gasped with a machete in his hand and a willed if exhausted grin on his face, after exerting himself so much to decapitate the general.

"Bastard!" Connor punched the Watcher down and began to kick him, speeding up his soon-to-occur death. But the quickening was soaring, expanding, and looking for its next dwelling, him, who was closer than the rest. The Highlander felt the power and knowledge of the general seize him. He levitated as bolts of lightning struck him, feeling a pain and a pleasure he did not want to feel.

Kyra fell on her knees, oblivious to everything, and hid her face in her hands, as forlorn sobs erupted from inside her. With Zanetti gone and the crowd being massacred by the bombs, the Watchers were history. They had won, but she had lost Katana forever. They would never be together again and she discovered that the Prize, the future, being the last one did not matter. All she wanted was to be with him. She raised her head.

"Somebody take my head now!" Kell regarded her estranged as Katana's quickening was over. MacLeod fell to the ground, dim tears rolling from his eyes. "Don't you hear me? Take my head!" she cried hysterically. Connor rose and stared at her, then at Kenny, then at Kell. Neither understood. "I can't be without him. I want my quickening with his... please."

"I won't do it, Kyra." Connor grunted.

"Neither will I." Kenny spat up.

"Kell?" Kyra questioned.

"I won't take your head out of pity. You must learn to endure his loss." Kell lectured.

"NOOOO!" Kyra bellowed, wielding up her broadsword. She would get her quickening to Katana's... or Katana's to hers. "MacLeod, fight me damn you!"

She struck at the Highlander. Connor opposed his blade as he could. Kell and Kenny retreated. Kyra slammed hardly against the katana. She then tried a downward chop that Connor promptly diverted as he delivered a kick in her belly. She stepped back before lunging forward again, slicing successfully MacLeod's left forearm.

"Kyra! You don't want to do this!" Connor tried to calm her down.

"I want to be with him, MacLeod. I don't care about the Prize. I never did! Our quickenings will be one, within you or within me." She hissed before going forward again. Connor dodged the thrust intended at his right side and delivered a strong lash at her armed hand. Her wrist and her hand were torn apart. Kyra shrieked as she eyed the bloody stump. Connor glanced at the hand he had just severed, going redder and redder by the blood that dripped abundantly from the incomplete arm.

"Kyra..." Connor softened. "It's over."

"Do it, Highlander." She cried, not a warrior now but a broken-hearted woman. "Without my hand, my chances are none. Please, send me to him."

Connor's eyes went moist. He raised his sword above his neck and struck without saying anything. Kyra's beautiful face went down with the head, smiling blissfully. The explosions were over, and only death, disguised as bloody corpses and maimed arms and legs, could be seen where the crowd was. Connor regarded Kenny, whose eyes could not endure the tears that were flowing down. Kell had knelt to save a prayer. The quickening seized Connor. A green flash of light possessed him and the energy and knowledge of Kyra gripped him fiercely. Then he felt it and heard someone.

"HIGHLANDER!"

Connor could see a familiar face approaching. Could it be... Kane? He thought he had seen the last of the brutal warrior in Niri, inside the cave of Nakano. But he was back, wearing an all-black jogging suit... and Connor was defenceless, welcoming the quickening of Kyra inside of him, making her and Katana one now and forever.

Kane dashed towards Connor, slamming his katana against the Highlander's neck. It was close, very close. After four hundred years, he would finally take his head...

_AUTHOR'S NOTE: The title is the name of a Sting "song", featured in "Brand_


	17. Chapter 17

**Chapter XVII: And the winner is...**

Connor heard the whistle of the air being sliced by Kane's blade drawing closer and closer to his neck. Kyra's quickening was going off but he was still unable to put up his sword and parry the blow. The Spartan was a truly powerful immortal, and as such, her power had him completely immobile.

A deafening clatter astounded him and he saw Kane being repelled. The quickening went off and Connor fell to the floor. He painfully looked up and found his former friend Jacob Kell presenting opposition to Kane.

"The Highlander is mine!" Kane bellowed.

"I'm a Highlander as well." Kell stood in a fighting stance. "I'm Jacob Kell and only I will take the head of Connor MacLeod!"

Kell struck forward, slamming hard against Kane's blade. A struggle began, with one's sword hooked in the other's. Connor stood up and produced the gloves he had kept all the time in his trousers pocket. He knew that whoever won would come after him next and he had to be ready. He fitted them in his hands and waited.

Kane unhooked his weapon and lashed at Kell's chest, slicing it shallowly. Jacob replied with a failed chop that Kane's shoulder escaped by a hair's distance. The sorcerer punched Kell in the face before he could react and Kell staggered back. Kane regarded Connor from the distance.

"Hey, MacLeod. Four hundred years. Oh, and you never wrote." Kane hissed. "Though you look like yak waste!"

"Ever knew what you can form with the words 'MacLeod'?" Kell taunted. " 'Came old'. Like him."

"That's sorely bad, baldie." Kane threatened. "The Devil will take you as his personal joker."

The sorcerer struck. Kell parried and countered with a neat slice that carved deep in Kane's free arm. Still, Kane found a clear path at Kell's left for his sword to take Jacob's head and took it... or so he thought. Kell lifted up his left arm and a small blade surged from under his sleeve, blocking the katana. Jacob withdrew his blade, causing a painful stir in Kane's arm.

"Does it hurt, Ruth?" Kell joked as he deflected off a bad attack.

He lunged forward. Kane stood frozen and suddenly he split himself in two, each him standing at a side of Jacob. Kell stared baffled, uncertain of whom to attack. He hit the one on his left, the image of which disappeared in the air.

"Bad choice, Church Bell." Kane whispered in his ear while his blade sliced off Kell's head.

"Kell!" Kenny shrieked sadly.

"Don't worry, little bastard. You will join him soon." Kane said before glorifying in Kell's quickening.

The man-boy started to run towards Kane, wanting to take his head as the sorcerer was still possessed by the quickening. But not only did Connor stop him, the nature of the quickening made him shiver. Evil, pure evil. He had learnt of something called "dark quickenings", but never thought he would witness one.

"Don't. It's against the rules." Connor hissed. "And he's mine."

The quickening went off and Kane glared at them with a renewed vigour. Connor made his blade twist in his hand and grinned defiantly as he approached. Kane guffawed silently. Suddenly they crashed. Kenny could not believe the speed at which the ancient enemies had attacked each other. He lay back, hoping not to be hit by either of them.

They began to chop at each other's blade like two amateur fighters, intending to wear the other out. Suddenly, Connor shifted and sneaked under Kane's blade, slashing the sorcerer's stomach. Kane grimaced in pain as Connor took distance to recover his breath.

"Hey, MacLeod. You've learned something in these years. Let's see how you manage now."

Kane raised his sword to the sky and the blade of it started to glimmer. A thunderbolt escaped from it and hit the floor to his right. Before Connor's eyes, a face familiar to him appeared. To Kane's left, another shape out of another bolt glared at the Highlander.

The former was a Japanese aged man, wearing monk costumes and wielding a neat Japanese katana. The latter was a slender darkhaired man, known till his death as Duncan MacLeod.

"Nakano... Duncan." Connor stammered.

The sorcerer lunged towards him. Connor remained frozen in disbelief. Only when the Japanese cut him hard in the stomach did he react. Nakano's second blow was promptly parried. The Asian took distance and struck forward in a final attack. Connor closed his eyes and dropped his sword. He opened his eyes again and reached out for Nakano, from whom he stole the katana, and making a twist, took the head of the illusion resembling the ancient sorcerer.

The blade in his hand disappeared and Connor picked up his tiger-head katana. The shape of Duncan MacLeod struck at him. Connor avoided well his advances and delivered a lash across the other's face.

"MacLeod!" Kane taunted. "He's one of yours. Don't be so mean."

The illusion attacked again. Connor eluded all the attacks without inconveniences and impaled the fake Duncan against his sword.

"Connor... don't... do it!" Duncan begged.

"Duncan's dead, Kane." Connor stiffly uttered as he took the head of the false other MacLeod. "Now, fight!"

He slammed against the sorcerer. Kane dodged him and gashed Connor's back with a good thrust. The Highlander retreated but Kane attacked him, causing him two more fresh scars, one in the shoulder and the other in the chest. Connor hit the floor.

"Hey, MacLeod. Do you know what Kane rhymes with?" Kell's quickening had evidently bequeathed Jacob's particular sense of humour to the sorcerer. "Pain."

He chopped at Connor's head. The Highlander rolled to a side and stood up again. He took aim with his left hand and raised his sword above his head. Kane struck but Connor moved faster and carved deeply the sorcerer's belly. His opponent fell, feeling the pain of the wound, unable to endure it.

"It also rhymes with lame!" Connor hissed as his blade tore at Kane's throat, slicing head and body apart.

That was it. Only Kenny remained between him and the Prize. Kane's quickening grasped him. Connor soared into the airs as all the knowledge and power of the sorcerer raped him. The quickening was magnificent, even the Kurgan's paled in comparison. He shrieked, enduring the mixed emotions unleashed. He could feel nothing except it. It went off all of a sudden and he landed harshly on the floor, experiencing a new stage of power... and something else.

Darkness. He was sure. He felt something inside him pushing beneath the surface, consuming and confusing him. He staggered up then fell on his knees again, noticing a lack of self-control that devoured him. No, he could not be the one. Not like this. He had not allowed it to the Kurgan, and he sensed that even the Russian brute would be nothing compared to the evil struggling to break free inside of him. He rose, wanting to warn the boy. But he couldn't.

A force from within directed his movements and he could only delay it exerting himself beyond his possibilities. He saw black sparks emanating from the movements of his hands. He gave a step forward and dove to the floor again, fighting with his own body, feeling he would be unable to win the inner battle against the darkness of all the evil immortals together.

-----

Kenny stared bewildered, grasping a full notion of what was going on. Connor MacLeod was being consumed by darkness. He had taken Kane's quickening, who had taken Kronos'. To that malicious mix, the Kurgan's could be added, spicing up the dark quickening. In the sorcerer it did not make much of a difference but inside the Highlander, it would obliterate the noble warrior and mankind would face an eternity of darkness.

What could he do? Take MacLeod's head? It was not a solution. The dark quickening would act upon him as well. Though a small being is easier to handle than a large one, Kenny would rule the world as a spawn of darkness, his powers enhanced by the Prize. The Prize...

"The power of a strong quickening... multiplied a million fold."

He recalled Katana's words and gazed up to the skies, feeling something he had never felt. Something like fulfilment, mixed with sense of purpose and thrill. It had to be done. There was no other way. He determinedly stepped towards Connor and lifted up his weapon. The Highlander eyed him as he put his body under transient control.

"Do it, PUNK!" Connor muttered calmly in a voice that was barely his before the petty sword of the petty immortal severed his head.

The Game was over. To his own disbelief, Kenny had won.

-----

The Quickening rose as a black stag that galloped around him before seizing him. Kenny felt his skin stretch, boil, melt and scar. The final process was underway. He felt the darkness taking hold of him, but there was nothing he could do to stop what he had unleashed. He yelped as he felt his hands and legs burning.

In the past, single quickenings had caused deep scars across his body. So the power of the Prize would be too much for his small, undeveloped body. Therefore, he would be consumed by it and disappear without a trace. It was his sacrifice to mankind, to save all those who had despised immortals since the watchers had revealed their existence. He did not think they were worth it, though.

As a beam of light surged to heavens, dragging him with it towards the atmosphere and eroding out slowly and dolorously his body, he remembered all those who did deserve his sacrifice. For they had cared about mortals, and had perished still caring. Amanda, Methos, Katana, Kyra, Kell, the two MacLeods, and many others. His limbs were painful history now and he felt how the invisible force that was consuming him made his stomach and chest become stardust.

His neck began to vanish and he let out one final shriek that echoed all across the world before the head of the last immortal vaporised and the particles of his body joined the breaking dawn, to be one forever with daylight.

END

_AUTHOR'S NOTE: Any similarity between Kane and Shang Tsung in "Mortal Kombat: The Movie" is not a coincidence. And I relied lightly on a couple of lines from Linkin Park's "Crawling"_


End file.
